Unity
by Philosophizes
Summary: The Legion's made it through their first year and just picked up a group of new recruits- the most difficult group yet. Will they change to fit the Legion, or will the Legion change to fit them? And what secrets are being kept? DISCONTINUED, with apologies from the author.
1. Takeoff, Pt 1

**Chapter 1a**

"**Takeoff, Pt. 1"**

* * *

><p>"Listen to that!" Phantom Girl exclaimed.<p>

Blok tilted his head slightly.

"To what?"

"Exactly!" she said elatedly. "No more noise! The construction people are finally done!"

"It is nice to have a quiet Headquarters again," Saturn Girl said. "At least they only had to be around a week."

"So, what's for breakfast?" Tinya asked brightly.

"Eggs," Cosmic Boy told her.

"What, again? Is that the only thing we buy around here?"

"I like eggs," Sun Boy said defensively. "And if you keep having me cook in the morning, that's the only thing you're going to get."

"_I'd_ like to know what's wrong with some decent toast," Tyroc grumbled.

"It's too scratchy. If you want some, make it yourself."

"Arguing so early already?"

Marla Latham put a hand on each of their shoulders and smiled good-humoredly.

"You'll put me out of a job faster than I'd already expected!"

Colossal Boy smacked himself on the forehead.

"That's right! It's your last day, Mr. Marla! I'm sorry, I _totally_ forgot-"

"That's okay," he said. "I'm still surprised I got recalled, myself. When the President demanded that someone come and watch you kids, she made it sound like a permanent position!"

"We never needed a minder," Dream Girl said, largely to herself. "And I wish somebody would say who managed to convince the President otherwise."

"I'm just glad someone did," Tinya said, then glanced at Marla. "Not that we don't like having you around or anything."

Marla chuckled.

"No, I understand. I'm sure you'll do fine all by yourselves."

* * *

><p>Brainiac 5 stood in the middle of his new lab, recently abandoned by the construction company, and surveyed his new domain.<p>

RJ Brande had been quite liberal with his money in this room. It was the most advanced one Querl had ever seen off Colu, barring the main Research and Development facility for Brande Industries.

He was itching to start working in the lab, but he knew better than to just rush in. The equipment needed to be tested.

Some of the lab funds had kindly been designated for buying raw material. Querl pulled a sample drawer open and started to pull out the small jars, reading through the labels quickly.

He had had an idea earlier, about metal alloys for heavy-duty scientific equipment-

_Vanadium to help with the bonding process_, he thought to himself as he put the jars he wasn't going to use to one side. _Inertron for strength. Cavorite for gravity shielding. Nth metal for durability. Tellurium…no. Not that._

He spent a quiet half-hour setting up the equipment and preparing the metals he'd selected. Carefully, he started to melt the metals together, selecting the jars he wanted from group and measuring out the proper amount of fillings.

* * *

><p>Lightning Lad was curious.<p>

The construction team had spent a whole week in this new lab. There was no way he wasn't going to go look.

He put his hand against the keypad and the door _wooshed_ open quietly. He was Brainiac 5 over at the counter, absorbed in something. He walked as silently as he could around the room. Word of the new recruit's attitude had gotten around.

Garth spent some time trying to puzzle out what the various odd-looking machines were, but soon gave up. He drifted towards Brainiac 5, and watched him work.

* * *

><p>"What're you doing?" someone asked, and put a hand on his shoulder.<p>

Querl whirled, sample jar still in hand.

For an instant, he was caught up in the memory of a day a few years earlier.

_He saw the other scientists come into the room, but ignored them. Then one tried to pull him away, and he dropped the vial he was holding. It smashed against the counter and spilled into the other experiments- _

He jerked and pushed Garth's hand off quickly, and put the sample jar back on the counter harder than strictly necessary. He didn't notice.

"_Get out!_" Brainiac 5 yelled, pushing the other Legionnaire backwards towards the door.

Lightning Lad's eyes widened and he held up his hands.

"Woah, I was just asking-"

_The chemicals reacted violently-_

The Legionnaires reached the door, and Querl shoved Garth hard into the hallway. He stumbled back into the wall.

"_Stay out!_"

He locked the door this time, then sat on the floor and tried to calm down. After a minute he stood and turned back to his experiment.

Still shaken, and trying hard to distract himself with work, Querl didn't notice when he added Tellurium to the mix of molten metal.

* * *

><p>Andromeda sat curled up on her bed, arms hugged tightly around her abdomen.<p>

_I can't take the transuit off. I can't take the transuit off._

Her stomach, unbelievably, managed to come up with an even more painful twist. She bit down harder on the inside of her lip.

_The food's been out in the air. It's contaminated. It's been touched by _aliens_. _

Another hunger pang.

_The transuit keeps the lead out. It filters the air. I _can't _take it off. I don't _care _how hungry I get. The food's been contaminated. I can't eat it._

* * *

><p>Shrinking Violet regarded the locked lab door for a moment.<p>

She knew labs. She'd brought a few things- and, more importantly, she'd heard about how Lighting Lad had been evicted. No one would come looking for her in there.

Salu dropped her bag, stood up against the door, and shrunk. She watched the world around her shift from regular-sized to large to massive; and finally the physical world lost all illusion of solidity as she saw the gaps between molecules. She maneuvered herself carefully around the bonds holding the universe together until the shape of her molecular world changed.

Shrinking Violet continued moving for a few more millimeters, a distance that seemed much longer at this size, and grew.

She spared a quick glance at Brainiac 5, who hadn't noticed her yet, and unlocked the door.

When she stepped back inside from grabbing her bag, he was staring at her, mouth pressed in a thin, disapproving line.

Salu clutched her bag to her chest and stared back.

Long moments of silence stretched out between them, and then Querl turned back to the counter.

Salu kept standing there for a second before heading for an empty length of countertop in the corner. She put her bag down on top and pulled out her books and papers, stashing them neatly in the cupboard space directly below her spot. The few gadgets she'd brought along went into the drawer.

Finally, she pulled out a Newton's cradle- five metal balls suspended between two metal bars. She put it carefully in the corner of the counter by the wall and dropped the first ball.

The _click-click_ of physics in action filled the otherwise-silent lab.

* * *

><p>Luornu, out of uniform, walked Marla Latham to the spaceport.<p>

They reached the terminal reserved for private business flights and she gave him a big hug.

"I'm going to miss having you around, Mr. Latham," she told him. "You're the only one I really know well in the Legion."

He put a hand on her head and hugged her back awkwardly.

"Ah, you have Querl now," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but he's not the best company- and I didn't talk to him much, even though we lived together with Mr. Brande for six months."

She pulled away from him as she heard the ticketing agent announce the arrival of the Brande Enterprises ship.

"You'll call or something? Or Mr. Brande? I miss talking to him."

Marla smiled at her.

"Yeah, we'll call. Mr. Brande is going to miss his kids to much not too."

Lu stayed in the terminal until the ship had flown out of sight, then headed back towards Headquarters.

* * *

><p>Invisible Kid had spent his morning going over the building again. He was absolutely sure now that he could find everything or anywhere in his new home.<p>

But he hadn't seen the lab yet. Lyle hadn't forgotten the argument he'd had with Brainiac 5 over the cruiser, but there was _no way_ he was going to be denied lab space.

The door was open.

Lyle put his hands on his hips and looked around. Everything seemed to be in good order- better order, actually, than he'd ever seen a lab in. This was _much_ better than the little space he'd managed to set up for himself in his room, or the lab at NMSPD HQ.

Brainiac 5 had spread out over the long counter on the back wall, working on something that looked very electronic. Shrinking Violet was holed up in a corner, occupying herself quietly.

Well, that boded well for him.

He sauntered up to the counter, looking curiously at a simmering, metallic-looking experiment.

"This isn't a _museum_, you know," Brainiac 5 snapped at him.

Lyle stepped back from the counter and held up his hands.

"Woah, easy there. I wasn't going to touch anything. What are you working on now?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," he said, glaring.

"It looks to me like a really big computer-"

"It doesn't matter what it is. Get out of my lab!"

"_Your_ lab?" Lyle asked, slightly offended. "It's the Legion's lab. I'm a Legionnaire, and a scientist besides. I have every right to be in here."

He pointed over to the corner.

"Besides, you've let _her_ stay."

"_She's_ not making any trouble," Querl snapped. "_You_, however, have been nothing _but_ trouble."

"I haven't caused any trouble!"

"You accosted me outside the building before auditions-"

Lyle stared at him, mouth agape.

"I didn't _accost-_"

"You then proceeded to incite an argument in the hangar-"

"_Incite-!_"

"And _now_ you have barged your way into my lab, _without_ my permission, into what _could_ have been a highly dangerous situation."

"You're making a _computer!_" Lyle exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "You can't_ kill_ someone with a computer!"

"Yes, you can," Querl told him, straight faced.

* * *

><p>Tasmia peered curiously at the communications console.<p>

"And this button does what?"

"That one can pull up a map of the city and show you where the call came from," Saturn Girl told her. "If it's not a private number, you'll get the address, as well. Otherwise it just points out the building."

"That seems useful."

"I don't think we've actually used it yet. Our calls are pretty simple. Mostly, we just pick up."

Shadow Lass looked over the buttons again, trying to fix them into her memory.

Something caught her eye.

"There's a flashing light."

Saturn Girl glanced over and pushed a button.

"That's the call light."

The screen blinked to life and Triplicate Girl's slightly-worried face filled the view.

"Lu?" Imra asked, surprised. "Weren't you taking Mr. Latham down to the spaceport?"

"Yeah, I did, but I found trouble on the way back," she told them. There's some guy down here who's claiming to be from somebody called the 'Dark Circle'-"

"_Terrorists_," Tasmia growled.

"Anyway, he's making some vague threats and stuff-"

"The Science Police-" Saturn Girl started to ask.

"They're holed up down the street. The guy's destroyed a warehouse already. He's powered- some sort of energy blasts."

She looked at Saturn Girl hopefully.

"If you send some people down here, I'll meet them."

Imra looked over at Tasmia.

"Go find Brainiac 5 and Andromeda. Get down there and help out- Luornu will lead."

* * *

><p>Shrinking Violet was ignoring the continued argument between the two boys.<p>

She was too busy minding Brainiac 5's abandoned experiment. She wasn't really sure what he had planned on doing with it, but the metal was starting to boil over.

Salu turned the heat down and located some gloves and tongs. She put the gloves on and moved the still-molten metal to a cooling chamber, careful to set the temperature rate to something that –hopefully- wouldn't damage the integrity of the metal.

She sat watching it for some minutes as the argument kept building up steam. Finally, the chamber beeped and clicked open. Still wearing the gloves, Salu reached in and pulled it out, carefully using a thin bit of metal to lever the now-solid alloy out of the crucible.

She put the crucible back in its stand and put the gloves away, hefting the ingot in her bare hand.

It was still cool, and surprisingly light. What was it for?

Shrinking Violet turned as the door opened again. Phantom Girl walked in, took one look at the argument, and got between the two new teammates.

"Sorry to interrupt your little discussion," she said. "But I'm taking you-"

She poked Lyle in the chest.

"-out on patrol."

Tinya looked over at Salu.

"You too. You both need to get used to the city."

"I live in this city," Lyle pointed out.

"But you aren't used to seeing like us," she told him.

"By _all means_, take them," Querl said dismissively. "I have work to do that would go better _uninterrupted._"

He had a special glare for Lyle at that last word.

"Not so fast, new guy," Tinya told him. "Imra says you're going on a mission."

"Wha-_he_ gets to go on a mission and I'm going on patrol?" Lyle asked incredulously. "Shouldn't it be the other way around? _I've_ already helped out!"

"More reason for him to get some experience," Phantom Girl retorted, pulling him towards the door. "Come on, Shrinking Violet."

Salu looked at the metal she was holding for a moment, then put it in the drawer with her electronics she'd brought along. She could ask about it later.

* * *

><p>Triplicate Girl crouched down behind a chunk of fallen building. Behind her a few hundred meters, the Science Police were holding a line to keep bystanders out.<p>

Shadow Lass was sitting on her heels next to her, back against the debris.

"Is this normal for you?"

"Not really. We've never done actually terrorists before. The closest we've gotten is some guy working with a corrupt Sci-Pol."

She glanced over to her right, where Brainiac 5 and Andromeda were sitting in frosty silence.

"What is the Dark Circle, anyway?"

"A terrorist organization, which in its pure form is dedicated to the eradication of all superplanetary governments."

Even Andromeda spared a glance for Brainiac 5.

"And…that means what?" Lu asked after a moment.

"They hate the idea of a government that rules more than one planet," Shadow Lass said, looking up at the building further down the street where the man was holed up. "That means they'll do just about anything to destroy the United Planets."

"You_ understood_ that?"

Tasmia stood and started towards the building.

"Let's just go."

* * *

><p>"So… do we patrol like the SPs patrol?" Lyle asked as he, Phantom Girl, and Shrinking Violet walked out of the building. "Or do we do something else, being superheroes?"<p>

Phantom Girl looked at him sideways.

"You're going to want to be careful with that whole 'superhero' thing. We're part of the government- like the Science Police. We're not superhero-superheroes. They worked outside the law."

She spread her arms wide.

"Anyway, you live in New Metropolis- you should know better. There are people who'd rather forget."

Lyle just shrugged. They wore uniforms like superheroes, had powers like superheroes- what did it matter, really?

"So I take it that we patrol like the SPs do?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

She paused for a moment, thinking.

"And don't look back when people stare at you- it just encourages them. Even if it makes you uncomfortable."

* * *

><p>The Legionnaires spread out around the bottom floor of the decimated building, footsteps echoing oddly in the large, mostly empty floor.<p>

The ceiling loomed somewhere high above them in the darkness, and Triplicate Girl was thankful that at least there weren't many places for the terrorist to be hiding.

She started to speak.

"Okay, Legionnaires-"

Andromeda whirled suddenly and used her heat vision to blast a crate apart. It collapsed in a miniature inferno.

A shape in black rolled out from behind the conflagration and rose gracefully to its feet.

Before Luornu could say anything, Andromeda was rushing at the man.

He extended his arm, palm out. A beam of whitish energy shot through the air and hit Laurel in the chest, throwing her backwards despite her momentum. There was a crash as she hit a large stack of crates, destabilizing the pile and burying herself.

* * *

><p>Salu looked around at the city as they passed, still trying her best to blend into the background, or at least her teammates.<p>

She blinked and stopped momentarily, cocking her head slightly, listening intently.

No, it was definitely there- just at the edge of hearing, but-

Further down the street, there were a few angry exclamations- faint, but definitely there.

She tugged on Phantom Girl's cape and started running down the street towards the disturbance.

An annoyed-looking man glanced at her as she got closer and noticed her Legion belt.

"Down there! In the building!" he said, pointing.

Shrinking Violet ducked into the alley, noticed a badly-blocked old doorway further down, and headed straight for it.

* * *

><p>Shadow Lass was racing for Laurel within seconds.<p>

She was only a few yards away from where she'd started when she was thrown sideways by another blast of energy. She fell to the ground and skidded, smoking slightly, until she hit the wall.

Tasmia pushed herself up onto her knees and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the bright blotches obscuring her vision.

There was a sudden, unexpected blow to her torso. She was flipped over onto her back, gasping for breath as her diaphragm protested at the pain of the kick.

The man who'd kicked her was still nearby. She knew it.

Tasmia swept a leg around blindly and felt herself hit something. There was a soft thump as the man fell to the ground.

Shadow Lass stood and tried to hear where the terrorist was.

_I trained in the dark. I can do this._

Her vision started to clear and she backed up a bit, hoping to actually be able to see her attacker.

After a moment she could see again, and looked up at the man, ready to fight.

Behind him, Triplicate Girl appeared and tried to kick him from behind.

The Dark Circle operative spun, caught her foot as it came up, and blasted her with an energy beam at close range.

The stink of burned cloth filled the air and Lu fell.

* * *

><p>Invisible Kid and Phantom Girl reached the mouth of the alley just in time to see Shrinking Violet shrink down and run through a gap in the badly-barricaded door of an ancient storage shack attached to a newer building, one of the relics of the olden days of the city.<p>

Lyle followed Tinya as she charged straight for the doorway.

"How are we-"

She reached back and grabbed him, going intangible as she pulled him through the blockage.

He blinked in the gloom.

"Oh."

There was a strange moment of weightlessness as Tinya phased them both back into solid form- and then the uncared-for wooden floor gave out.


	2. Takeoff, Pt 2

**Chapter 1b**

"**Takeoff, Pt. 2"**

* * *

><p>Brainiac 5 watched, fighting down horror, as the Dark Circle operative blasted Triplicate Girl at close range.<p>

As she crumpled to the ground, he raised his arms, changing them as he moved until two cannons were aimed directly at the man.

He fired.

The twin energy pulses hit him squarely in the torso, knocking him back and spinning him around.

Querl ignored the man and ran for Luornu, falling to his knees next to her.

The energy blast had burned through her light jacket and badly charred the shirt underneath. Dark flakes of fiber came away as he touched the spot, revealing the bright white of her undershirt.

If the blast hadn't reached her skin, maybe-

"_Luornu. Luornu!_"

* * *

><p>Lyle tried to banish the light spots floating in his vision and failed. He sat up carefully and looked around.<p>

The basement was rather dark and a little damp. It smelled faintly of something –probably mold. The floor down here was concrete, at least.

He stood and looked around, not seeing either of his teammates. It was too dark and his eyes were still adjusting to the dark.

Had Shrinking Violet even fallen down here? If she had stayed shrunken she wouldn't have collapsed any of the floor.

Lyle thought he heard movement.

"Phantom Girl?" he asked, peering into the darkness.

There was a glint of light and a giant gloved hand headed at speed towards his face.

* * *

><p>Andromeda pushed herself upward, heaving the heavy shipping crates off her. Her anger rose as she did.<p>

_He _got _me! All this power, and some _alien _got _me_!_

The world took on a red tint as her heat vision started to gather in front of her eyes.

_He'll _pay_ for that._

She spotted him getting up of the floor between Shadow Lass and Brainiac 5.

_He's going to _burn_._

* * *

><p>Phantom Girl had rolled out of the light spot on the floor made by the hole in the ceiling as soon as she'd felt something solid under her. There was absolutely no point in letting herself be obvious for whoever-it-was they were chasing, if he was down here.<p>

She was a little worried about her uniform, though- all that white in the dark? She phased out just a little and looked over at Lyle, a few feet away.

Tinya was about to say something when a large splotch of not-quite black she hadn't noticed before moved and socked him in the face.

She backed up, hoping he hadn't noticed her.

"Do you know him?"

Phantom Girl spun and just managed not to squeak in surprise.

"You're _really_ good at lurking!" she told Shrinking Violet quietly. The younger girl was crouching on top of a large abandoned wooden box. "No, I don't know him. He looks funny, though."

Salu glanced over.

"We have to get Lyle," Tinya continued, whispering. "We can't just leave him there."

"Is it just me or am I hearing more children?" the man who had punched Lyle drawled.

Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl retreated farther into the shadows.

"I'll go around behind him," Tinya told her partner. "You stay here and wait until then, then come and attack him from the front."

"How do I know when you're about to attack him?" she asked. "Do you use signals?"

Phantom Girl managed to look slightly uncomfortable, even in the dark.

"Usually we just let Saturn Girl tell us when to move."

"But she's not here."

"Just wait until I attack him," Tinya muttered, slinking off to begin her ambush.

* * *

><p>Shadow Lass watched the Dark Circle operative get up warily, ready to rush forward and knock him back to the ground once he straightened up enough for her to get him below his center of gravity.<p>

There was a bright spot at the edge of her vision.

She looked over at Andromeda, who looked so enraged that Tasmia knew the heat vision blast she could see gathering wasn't going to be gentle.

"Andromeda, _no!_" she yelled, throwing a hand forward.

A shadowy shield formed in front of their attacker seconds before the red streaks of the Daxamite's heat vision punched through it. The darkness absorbed some of the energy, but the man was still forced back, clutching his chest. There was a smell of cooking meat.

Andromeda rushed for the Dark Circle operative, almost faster than the eye could follow, fist raised.

But Shadow Lass had anticipated the move. She threw up another small shadow shield to block Andromeda's strike- the shields weren't durable at all, but at least they had a little stopping power.

The shield disappeared almost as soon as Andromeda's fist connected, but by that time Tasmia already had one leg hooked around her new teammates. A sweep of her arm and turn of her body used the Daxamite's momentum against her, sending her heading straight for the floor.

Laurel hit the concrete hard enough to leave an impact crater. She stood back up with a little care and flipped her hair back behind her head.

Then she swung at Shadow Lass.

* * *

><p>Triplicate Girl grunted softly and opened her eyes.<p>

Querl was leaning over her.

"Wha-"

She coughed.

"Were you burned?" he asked immediately.

"Urgh. No, I don't think so."

She tried to push herself up, and winced as a pain shot through her chest. She clenched her teeth and kept going.

"Don't get up," Brainiac 5 ordered her. "You're hurt."

She scowled at him.

"Yeah? And? That's what we _do_, Querl. We get hurt fighting, and then keep going."

"That shows an astounding lack of judgment. Continuing to engage in the same activity that has already caused serious harm to yourself-"

"Don't lecture me in the middle of a fight!" Lu snapped. "So we're all crazy-"

She almost missed the twitch he wasn't quite able to conceal."

"-but it's not like we're going to _stop!_ Why aren't you over there helping?"

"Is providing assistance not an acceptable activity, then?"

"You're not providing any sort of assistance! You're starting a debate!"

Triplicate Girl pushed herself up in one movement and tried to ignore the slight throbbing in her ribs.

"Now, if you'll _excuse_ me, _I'm_ going to go do my job!"

* * *

><p>Shrinking Violet started to move forward before Phantom Girl began her attack. She wasn't comfortable with the idea that they had no way to communicate.<p>

She crouched down behind a box and watched, observing the man. For some unfathomable reason, he was wearing odd gloves and a see-through dome over his head. There was some sort of gas bubbling in there.

Salu thought it made him look silly.

A moment later, Tinya attacked.

The strange man took a kick to the back of the head and staggered forward some, then turned around.

"What did I ever do to you?" he complained, and pointed a hand at her.

A thin beam of energy shot out of one finger- and Tinya, who was fully solid and in the middle of another kick, took it in the shoulder. She grabbed the burned spot automatically and the movement made her kick miss. The man stepped forward and hit her smartly in the face while she was distracted.

"Now look what you made me do," he whined, looking down at the Legionnaire on the ground. "I hate punching people."

"I don't," Salu said, landing a solid blow to his kidney.

He spun and stared downward in disbelief, backing up.

"I don't believe it! I'm getting attacked by a _midget!_"

"I'm not short," she retorted, her foot connecting to the bottom of his knee. "I'm just young. Who are you, anyway?"

The man stared at her sullenly, holding his injured knee with both hands. Suddenly he spread his arms wide and struck a dramatic pose.

"Why, little girl- I am _STARFINGER!_"

He twirled on one foot a leveled a finger at her. It spat a length of curling black tape.

Shrinking Violet dodged easily to the side and jabbed her elbow up under his ribs.

"I _knew_ you were silly."

* * *

><p>Laurel forced herself back to her feet from another one of Shadow Lass's throws. She swayed where she stood, dizzy. Using her powers was using up energy she wasn't going to have much longer. The hunger pains in her stomach were finally breaking back in through the adrenaline, but now they had settled into a steady gnawing. It felt like her insides were destroying themselves.<p>

She shook her head, trying to clear it, but only managed to make her condition worse. She clutched her head.

"Andromeda?" Shadow Lass asked.

A hand fell on her shoulder.

"_Don't touch me!_" she growled, swiping at Tasmia. That simple motion was too much for her to compensate for- she staggered and fell on her side. She tried to get up again, but the pain in her midsection made her curl up, trying not to cry.

"Ancestors, what's _wrong_ with you, Andromeda?" she heard her teammate ask. "I didn't hurt you! And what were you _thinking?_ You would have _killed_ that man."

"He attacked me!" she managed to force out.

"That doesn't matter. Are you going to get up?"

Laurel cursed her quietly in Daxan.

"What?"

Andromeda forced herself to move. She got managed to uncurl, but couldn't get herself up off the ground.

"I guess I should ask if you _can _get up," Tasmia said dryly, after a moment of observation. She crouched down and dragged Laurel into a sitting position.

"Take your hands off me!" she snarled weakly.

"You have to get out of here somehow," the other girl told her, heaving her over her shoulder. Andromeda felt her teammate hook an arm around the backs of her knees. "And if I let you_ crawl_ back we'd be waiting for _decades._"

"Let go of me!" Laurel demanded, hitting the exposed back in front of her face. The blow had even less effect than it would have if she'd been back on Daxam.

"You've _got_ to get over this 'no touching' thing," Shadow Lass told her as the Daxamite cursed her with every relevant word she could think of.

* * *

><p>Shrinking Violet was still dodging Starfinger's attacks when the Science Police showed up.<p>

They were hard to miss- they had apparently noticed the rotting floor and had taken the stairs.

"Lars Hanscome, you are under arrest for theft! Stand down!"

"Oh, come _on._"

Salu ducked and backed away as the SPs advanced with their high beam lights to see in the dim cellar, headed towards Phantom Girl.

The senior Legionnaire was sitting up against one of the abandoned boxes, head on her knees.

"I'll be okay," she said. "How's Invisible Kid?"

Salu looked over to the bright spot on the floor and started to sidle over, trying to stay unnoticed.

One of the SPs had a different idea.

"Legionnaire?" a tall man with wide grey streaks at his temple asked.

Shrinking Violet looked up at him, then noticed he was holding a medical kit. She nodded.

He shook his head, and she couldn't tell if it was out of sadness or disgust.

"Just how old _are_ you?" he asked, kneeling down and flipping the kit open. He took out a packet of medical fluid and broke the stiff outer casing, shaking it to activate the medical nanobots inside.

"Ten, sir," Salu told him.

The man sighed. "You're even younger than him," he said, jerking a thumb at Invisible Kid.

He leaned over the boy's recumbent form.

"If he doesn't wake up soon I'm going to have to use the shock-packs to make sure that he can actually regain consciousness. Kids weren't meant to be punched by grown men."

The SP reached for the kit again.

Lyle's eyes snapped open.

"I'm awake! You don't need to do that!"

The officer sat back on his heels and shook his head.

"_Every_ time, Lyle."

The boy winced slightly and avoided looking at the man.

Deputy Zendak sighed and stood.

"I'm going to pretend I never saw you here, Lyle. Try not make this sort of thing a habit."

He walked past Shrinking Violet and back to his officers.

* * *

><p>Shadow Lass ignored the angry maniac she was holding and looked around.<p>

The Dark Circle operative was nowhere to be seen.

Her teammates, however, were very conspicuously arguing in the middle of the room.

"You let him get away!" Triplicate Girl accused. "What did you grab me like that for?"

Brainiac 5 glared at her, arms crossed.

"You were taking a _foolish _risk-"

"That's part of my _job!_ That's part of _your_ job!"

"It is not part of my _'job'_ to let you rush into a situation where your powers simply make you more of a target and you are already incapacitated-"

Lu's moth fell open.

"You're accusing me of being incompetent!"

"I am not!" he said immediately, sounding defensive.

"Yes you are! You're saying I'm not good enough for the job!"

"Making more of yourself is _not_ an effective power to have when the idea is to _keep_ from getting hit with something!" he snapped. "And you were _already_ hurt!"

"I have some news for you, Brainiac 5!" she said, jabbing him with a finger. "_I_ have more experience than you! I _can_ use my powers in a fight, and I was going to when _you_ decided to stop me! You didn't even _do_ any fighting!"

"That is absolutely not true. I shot the terrorist-"

"And then you let him get away!"

Shadow Lass sighed and started for the back door.

"Hey- where are you going?" Triplicate Girl demanded.

"Andromeda can't walk. She should get back to Headquarters."

Brainiac 5 gave Luornu a pointed look.

"You should, too," he said, grabbing her arm.

"_I can walk!_" she snapped, pulling away. "And the exit is on the _other_ side, Shadow Lass!"

"The Science Police are out that way," she pointed out. "Or did you _want_ them to see us like this?"

* * *

><p>"I feel <em>so<em> humiliated," Lyle muttered, face in his hands. He and Salu were back in the lab. "Deputy Zendak is going to tell my dad about all of that. He'll _have_ to."

Salu ignored him as he continued being morose. She opened the drawer she had stowed the experimental metal in earlier that day and held it.

What was this made of anyway?

She wandered over to the workstation close to where Lyle was sitting, still covered with sample jars.

_Nth metal, cavorite, vanadium- tellurium? Why tellurium? And why Nth metal _and_ cavorite?_

Salu looked at the oddly-light chunk of metal in her hand. What was he trying to do, get it to float?

It certainly wasn't floating now.

_Well, it's not _pure_ Nth metal or cavorite, I suppose_, she thought. _And cavorite only shields things from the effects of gravity- it doesn't float around on its own. And Nth metal does a whole lot more besides fly- maybe it's supposed to be a strong, light alloy that doesn't get affected by gravity? It could be useful for the really delicate parts of computers and machines. _

She tossed it up in the air and caught it again when it came back down. Definitely not anti-gravity.

_But that doesn't explain the tellurium- what use could something that turns metal energy into heat possibly have?_

* * *

><p>Most of the Legion was in the common room when the other mission team returned to headquarters.<p>

Brainiac 5 came through the room first, ignoring everyone as he headed straight for the lab.

Triplicate Girl stomped in next, followed closely by Shadow Lass, still carrying Andromeda.

Lighting stared at them.

"What happened to _you?_"

"I'm _never_ taking newbies out on a team again," Lu muttered, sitting down angrily in a chair. "That should be a rule- never let new recruits go on a mission by themselves."

"But you were with them," Sun Boy pointed out. He received a glare for his troubles.

Dream Girl stood.

"Come on, Triplicate Girl. I've got the medbay all set up."

She looked at Shadow Lass.

"And you can bring _her,_ too."

* * *

><p>The door opening interrupted Shrinking Violet's thoughts.<p>

Brainiac 5 stormed in, clearly in a bad mood.

Lyle looked up.

"Oh, did you not have a good time either?"

He ignored him and started working on his computer again.

"So you're not talking to me?"

Salu went back to ignoring them. She could spot an argument in the making.

_I still don't understand what this metal is supposed to do- with the Nth metal and the cavorite, I should be trying to drag it away from the ceiling. A bar of Nth metal this big would lift nearly eight of me!_

Her mind was caught for an instant on the mental picture of herself floating up towards the sky-

She blinked and looked down, eyes wide.

Her feet hit the ground again as the shock of finding herself floating in the air banished the mental image.

Salu stared at the metal.

_Maybe-?_

She pictured herself floating again, and her view of the room shifted slightly as the ground fell away.

What about moving?

She jerked forward a few inches and stumbled slightly as she hit the ground- the sudden movement had broken her concentration.

_The tellurium. It has to be. The alloying process must have bonded it with the cavorite and the Nth metal somehow and dampened their natural anti-gravity properties. Now they only fly if you think at them._

She turned towards her teammates, who had reached their inevitable argument.

"Guys," she said quietly.

They didn't hear her.

"Brainiac 5. Invisible Kid."

The sound of their names distracted them. Brainiac 5 glared at her, and then his eyes flitted to her hand.

"That's my experiment!"

Salu held her arms out from her sides.

"Watch."

She lifted off the ground.

The two boys exchanged glances.

* * *

><p>"This had better be good," Sun Boy said grumpily a few days later. "I don't want to be around Brainiac 5 any longer than I have to."<p>

"Be nice, Dirk," Imra chided.

"It's good," Nura promised.

"Can't you just tell me so I can get this over with?"

"Shh," Saturn Girl said. "They're coming."

Lyle stuck his head in and waved brightly. Brainiac 5, carrying a box, shoved past him and stood in the empty space in front of the meeting table. Shrinking Violet grew into view and lurked unobtrusively a little ways away.

Invisible Kid came into the room properly.

"Is anyone going to explain what we're doing here?" Tyroc asked.

Lyle smiled widely.

"Watch this!"

The Legion stared in astonishment as he floated into the air and glided around, barely touching the ceiling.

"Cool, huh?"

"What is it with you guys and flying?" Garth demanded. "I didn't know Rokk could, and now you! Is anyone else hiding something around here?"

"It's not him," Dream Girl interrupted smoothly.

"Of course it's him-"

Lyle touched down.

"No, she's right. It's not me."

He held his right fist out for inspection.

"It's this."

He was wearing a golden-colored ring emblazoned with the Legion symbol in black.

"Nice," Phantom Girl said approvingly.

"How can something that small make you fly?" Garth asked.

"Lantern rings did more than that, and they aren't any bigger," Lyle pointed out.

"Can we please not talk about Lantern rings?" Tyroc asked.

"So this was your invention?" Cosmic Boy asked.

Lyle grinned wider and slung an arm around his lab partners. Neither of them looked particularly pleased about this development.

"Nope- it was a group effort."

"Nice to know that _some_ people can work together," Shadow Lass remarked, looking at Andromeda.

Laurel was hunched over in her seat. She glared back. Frequent naps were keeping her mobile, but they were no substitute for food.

"And we made enough for everyone!" Lyle continued, taking the box from Querl. He flipped it open.

"_Awesome,_" Garth said, grabbing the first one.

Shrinking Violet took one and walked over to Andromeda, handing her the ring.

"I can already fly," she growled.

"That's not all they do," Brainiac 5 said.

Lyle looked at him askance.

"It's not?"

"No, it's not. They also serve as communicators, information storage, and locators. The entire system is routed through the Legion's central computer-"

"We don't_ have_ a central computer," Tinya interrupted.

"Yes, you do. I made it."

Lyle stared at him.

"When did you do that? We've been working on these for the past three or four days!"

Querl regarded him coldly.

"Just because _you_ have to sleep doesn't mean_ I_ am going to waste the night hours doing nothing."

He looked at Andromeda, and his expression managed to convey a raised eyebrow.

Laurel glared sullenly at Shrinking Violet, then snatched the flight ring from her hand and put it on.


	3. Poison

**Chapter 2**

"**Poison"**

* * *

><p>Andromeda lay in bed, on top of the sheets. It was less than an hour past midnight. She started at the blank wall, the darker patches of the places where she'd hit them to keep from thinking about the constant pain in her stomach standing out.<p>

She clutched at her abdomen as the empty ache got more intense suddenly.

Laurel hadn't been out of her room in almost a day. No one had come in to check on her. She had heard someone stop by her door a couple times, but they never knocked.

_And I didn't want them to!_ she tried to tell herself.

But hunger was undermining her resolve.

_If someone had come in, maybe they could have helped-_

_I don't need help!_

_Don't be an idiot. Of course you do. _

_Not from them!_

Laurel turned over, trying to distract herself with movement, but it just pulled at her cramped muscles painfully. She curled up automatically and whimpered slightly.

Her resolve broke.

_I don't care if I get sick- I need food!_

The voice of reason interjected.

_If I take the transuit off, I'll get lead poisoning and die._

_If I don't take it off to eat, I'm going to starve to death! All I have to do is find someplace without lead-_

_On this planet? Where could you possibly find someplace so clean-_

_The laboratory. It's _got_ to be regulated to keep outside influences out. _

Andromeda's mind was made up. She swung herself out of bed and walked as fast as she dared down to the kitchen and lab.

* * *

><p>Initially, Querl had ignored the slight movement he thought he'd caught at the edge of his vision. But then there was another slight movement, off to his other side.<p>

He turned away from his project and scanned the room.

The tips of someone's feet were sticking out from behind a temporary memory bank for COMPUTO.

He put down the tool he was working with and stalked toward the intruder.

* * *

><p>Andromeda had stripped off her transuit as soon as she sat down, and felt the air for the first time in nearly a week.<p>

She breathed in carefully, savoring the rush of fresh, unfiltered air in her throat.

No, it wasn't unfiltered- there was a very slight air current that ran to where she could hear an environment control running. The inside of the lab was as carefully controlled as any quarantine wing in a hospital.

Laurel looked down at the plate on the floor next to her, stacked with what was presumably edible material of some sort. She hadn't seen any of it before.

Tentatively, she reached out to touch one.

"What are you doing in here?"

She snatched her hand back and glared.

"None of your business, Brainiac. Go back to plotting."

"I do_ not_ plot," he told her, voice icy. His eyes narrowed. "You have your transuit off."

She stayed silent and tried to glare even more, but the closeness of the food was distracting.

Querl's eyes moved to the plate of food, and her stomach chose that moment to complain loudly.

Immediately, his attention switched back to her.

"You haven't been eating," he accused. "That's why Shadow Lass had to carry you back, and why you've been in your room all week. You were too weak to move much."

"Maybe I just wanted to stay away from you alien filth," she snarled. A sharp pain in her stomach shot up through her chest and she doubled over.

Brainiac 5 fixed her with a stern look.

"Are you going to eat that?" he demanded.

"I-"

"Don't bother lying. We both know you're in agony right now. You need food. Are you going to eat that?"

"Yes!" she snapped through clenched teeth. "Are you happy now?"

"Even though it's been touched by the likes of us?"

Andromeda squeezed her eyes shut and refused to answer.

"Of course, history is full of examples hunger defeating ideological resolve."

"There's _nothing else_ to eat, Brainiac. I- It's still contaminated-"

She heard him sigh.

"Give it to me."

Laurel's head shot up.

"What!"

"Give it to me," he repeated, hand held out.

She stared at him for a long moment before reaching over and handing it to him. He turned and walked off towards his equipment.

"What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously.

"I'm _irradiating_ it, Andromeda," he called, sounding annoyed. "Your immune system has existed adapted to a biological environment entire unlike Earth's. There are probably trace amounts of lead that need to be removed. Or did you _want _to kill yourself?"

Andromeda shut her mouth and settled for glaring at his back and trying to block out the pain, which seemed to have perversely gotten worse now that she was close to getting food.

It didn't take too long for him to return to the plate. He picked up one of the things she'd grabbed and held it out to her.

"I'm not putting that in my mouth," she told him angrily. "You're touching it."

More glaring.

"Just how, exactly, does one become contaminated by contact with a being from another species?" he asked.

"Germs," she said promptly, remembering her lessons.

"You keep pets on Daxam, don't you? Domestic animals of some sort?"

Laurel looked at him in confusion and anger.

"What-"

"Yes or no."

"Yes, of course, but what-"

"And these domestic animals certainly aren't the same species as you, are they?"

Andromeda opened her mouth and then shut it again.

"Yet you let them live in your houses, where pollution would be nearly instantaneous and completely inevitable-"

"They're still _Daxamite _animals," she snapped.

"But animals; nonetheless- and animals with genetic and biological systems different from yours."

"Yes," she growled. Somehow, the hunger was getting worse.

"So you agree that this contamination can't be from biological matter?"

"Just give me the food!" Laurel demanded, staring at the plate he still held.

His expression gave the impression that he had an eyebrow raised in question.

"Do you agree?"

"Yes! Now give me the plate!"

He held it a little father back and brought what he was holding closer.

"If you really_ are_ that hungry, take the food."

"That's the one you're touching, Brainiac!"

Brainiac 5 frowned.

"The invulnerability must be affecting your brain. We already established this. This 'contamination' you worry so much about is not biological; and furthermore, how can you be worried about malignant microorganisms when I don't even _have _biological systems, and keep myself as free from pollutants as possible when working?"

She glared at him. He made too much sense.

_But I'll _die_ before I admit this- this _alien_ might be right!_

He tossed the thing in his hand up a few centimeters and caught it, then offered it to her again.

Laurel snatched it and turned it over in her hand. It was a sort of light orange color and slightly fuzzy.

"Don't I need to skin it and cook it?" she asked suspiciously. "What sort of animal is this?"

Querl rolled his eyes.

"It's not an animal- it's a fruit. It's called a peach."

"Fruits don't have fur."

"It's not fur. You don't eat the outside. You take it off and eat the rest."

Laurel bit straight into it anyway. Her stomach contracted painfully as what little juice that actually managed to get in her mouth ran down her throat. She ignored it and devoured the pulpy inside, dropping the skin on the floor.

She reached for the rest.

Querl sat down on the floor, about a foot out of reach, and put the plate in his lap.

He picked up something red.

"This is also a fruit. It's called an apple."

He held it out.

_He's trying to make me eat out of his _hand!_ Of _all_ the-_

"I will _not_ be humiliated like this!" Laurel spat. "_Especially_ not by the likes of you!"

"If it wasn't for the likes of me, you wouldn't even_ have_ food that was safe to eat. Are you going to take it or not?"

Again, she snatched it from him and ate it quickly.

He picked up the next thing off the plate.

"This is a pear."

* * *

><p>It was breakfast time, and Dream Girl had a mission.<p>

The Founders were all down in the kitchen already, along with most of the other older Legionnaires. Nura walked purposefully through the door and stood at the clear end of the table, arms crossed.

"I want to lead a mission with the new recruits."

"I thought we already agreed we weren't going to let them go out together again," Sun Boy said.

"They're _good_, they just need time together- _then_ they'll be _great_. But keeping them away from each other isn't going to get them anywhere."

"What's going on today?" Tyroc asked suspiciously.

She ignored him and looked fixedly at Cosmic Boy.

"Let me take them on a mission."

"I know we had our share of troubles when we were starting out," he said. "But we never _attacked_ each other on a mission-"

"Voluntarily," Element Lad put in.

"-we never tried to kill anyone. We never ignored a fight in favor of something else, and we never were so lacking in common sense that we ran straight into a situation without bothering to be careful."

"Are you_ sure_ about that one?" Triplicate Girl asked, glancing sidelong at Lighting Lad, who drank some more of his coffee sullenly.

"Not_ all_ of them acted like thick-headed lackwits."

"The ones that didn't were forced to take up the slack, and that's not fair."

"Anyway," Phantom Girl said. "I only had two of the new guys –and Invisible Kid isn't really _new_, exactly- and we_ still_ had to get the Science Police to clean up after us!"

"They just can't work together," Lu said. "Some of them can't even work _alone!_ Andromeda attacked Shadow Lass and Brainiac 5 just argued the whole time! I know there were good reasons for letting these guys in –mostly- but they need to be paired with older members. They just _don't _get along with each other."

"They never _will_ if they don't have time together."

"They can have time together when they're not on missions where it'll cause trouble," Garth said. "I'm not going to go hauling their sorry hides out of trouble because they just argue or something."

"I'd rather not worry about if someone's covering me in a fight," Dirk added.

"And what about that Daxamite?" Tyroc asked. "I'd rather not be worrying about if I'm going to get attacked by my teammates."

* * *

><p>Shrinking Violet was just about to open the kitchen door when the shadows on the far side unraveled slightly.<p>

Tasmia put a finger to her lips and shook her head as Salu reached for the keypad. She made a 'listen' gesture.

Salu put her ear against the door and listened.

They were talking about her- her and the others.

She listened as the others kept saying how bad they were.

It hurt.

_We weren't _that_ bad- weren't we?_

* * *

><p>In the kitchen, Saturn Girl leaded back in her chair slightly and closed her eyes, only half-listening to the conversation.<p>

She could hear Tasmia and Salu clearly from where they were lurking outside the door, Tasmia's thoughts colored with indignation and Salu's with injured pride and a little doubt.

Farther away, but still just as strong, Imra could feel Querl working in the lab. She knew how he'd spent his night.

She drew her mind back closer to home and opened her eyes.

"They have worked together," Dawnstar was saying. "We have flight rings now, do we not? And a computer more powerful than anything outside the United Planets Navy or a university?"

"That was just Brainiac 5's project," Element Lad pointed out. "But yes, the flight rings were definitely an example of cooperation."

"You should take them, Nura," Saturn Girl said.

"What?" a few different people asked.

"They need the time together. We bonded nearly as much during fighting- maybe even more- as we did talking during downtime. They need that opportunity, too. Take them out today to wherever the trouble's going to be."

Nura smiled brightly at her.

"Thanks. You're not going to regret this."

Saturn Girl watched her as she walked out.

_No, you don't _really_ know that._

* * *

><p>Lyle had woken up and was still strangely full from the night before. He took the opportunity to get down to the lab early.<p>

"So, how did you enjoy your dark, lonely night?"

The now-familiar exasperated sigh followed his usual greeting.

"I fail to see why you assume that just because the rest of you are sleeping, I should feel lonely," Brainiac 5 told him.

"But you're all _alone _in here," he said dramatically. "In the dark, cold night, when the dark depths of a person's very _soul_ rise up-"

Lyle was hit by a flying apple core.

"You try my patience," Brainy told him, showing no sign whatsoever of having ceased his work for even an instant.

"What patience?" Lyle asked impudently, grinning. Then something occurred to him. He poked the apple core with his foot.

"Is Violet hiding around here somewhere?"

"No. She has not by yet today."

Invisible Kid frowned.

"So who-"

He caught sight of a discarded peach skin and he glanced over towards the far side of the lab.

Andromeda was sleeping there, curled up on the floor, the remains of the kitchen fruit bowl piled on a plate laid carefully on the nearest counter.

"_Oh_, so you_ didn't_ spend the night alone," Lyle remarked, looking sideways at his lab partner.

"Be silent or leave."

* * *

><p>Shadow Lass spread her arms wide, still getting used to the idea of flying a few hundred feet above the ground, but enjoying the wind and the slightly-weightless sensation the flight rings afforded.<p>

"Enjoying yourself?" Dream Girl asked, coasting in at an angle to fly next to her. She had taken to traveling like this as easily as most people took to walking.

Tasmia closed her eyes and focused on the wind.

"Of course. Don't you ever dream of flying?"

She got a small smile in return.

"Only when someone else is falling."

Quickly, she decided to change the subject.

"So, where are we going? I know we're headed north, but that's still a lot of places. And what are we going to be doing?"

"Could you all come in a bit?" Dream Girl called to the others. They had wandered off a little ways, exploring their newfound surroundings.

Nura slowed some to talk to her team more easily.

"We're headed to a place called Toronto," she told everyone, pointing to a slowly-growing city in the distance. "In about half an hour, an industrial spy calling herself Caress is going to try and slip off of the UP Fleet's Ontario Compound with naval secrets. _We're_ going to stop her from getting away with them."

"It would be a_ better _allocation of our time to prevent this woman from getting into the Compound in the _first _place," Querl pointed out.

"She's already in there."

"_What?_" Invisible Kid exclaimed.

"By the time I got everyone convinced I that I should take all of you out on this mission, it was too late to get there before she did."

Brainiac 5 persisted.

"Andromeda is _more_ than fast enough-"

Dream Girl looked over at him and smiled coolly.

"We're a _team_, Brainy. We _don't_ send people off by themselves to confront the enemy."

"_Brainy?_" Lyle said quietly to Violet. "I like it. It fits him."

Predictably, he got a nasty glare from the Legionnaire in question.

"Oh, you mean you _hadn't _started calling him that yet?" Nura asked.

* * *

><p>A shadowed figure dropped out of the window.<p>

Caress landed lightly on her feet and looked around. The cameras were still bypassed from when she had first come in, and the grounds patrol was headed for the front of the building. She had maybe ten minutes before they came around again.

She started to dash along the side of the building, headed for the place in the fence where the Fleet had been lax in restricting the plant growth.

Everything was going just as planned- the tall bushes and weeds were getting nearer by the second-

-and then something, some sense so deeply buried in her subconscious that she couldn't tell what it was, told her to move.

She dove for the ground and hit it just as there was a massive boom from right behind her. The ground shook violently, as if there was an earthquake in progress.

Caress scrambled to her feet and started to run again, but something caught the back of her loose outfit.

She turned and saw a tall blonde girl, maybe a young woman, holding on tightly and glaring wrathfully through her wind-tossed hair; as if she had a personal grudge.

Quickly, Caress spun, tearing a long hole in the fabric. She started to sprint for the fence, but stumbled sideways as a fist shot just past the left side of her face, startling her. Quickly, she grabbed the wrist.

The girl tore away and Caress stumbled back in shock- no one had ever broken out of her supergrip before!

Then a glint of light caught her eye.

She glanced down at the girl's waist. There was a gold belt there, bearing a black stylized black 'L' symbol, a star in the upper-right corner.

A Legionnaire.

"Nass!" she whispered as she turned to run again.

* * *

><p>Shadow Lass, standing in the concealing darkness of the side of building, stuck out a foot.<p>

Caress, who was too distracted to notice the sudden appearance of a boot, tripped over it.

Tasmia stepped out of the shadows and kicked the spy's legs out from under her as she stood. The woman rolled away and stood facing her.

Immediately, Tasmia aimed a blow at her face. Caress dodged and tried to head for the fence again.

A fist came out of nowhere and she was forced backwards. She put one hand up against the wall to steady herself and held her abused stomach.

"I'm not getting out of here without a fight, am I?" she asked the newest girl, who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Of course not," Dream Girl said simply.

Caress tried to dodge past her, but Shadow Lass was ready for her, and then she tried to go the other way, but Dream Girl was already there- and then the fight started in earnest.

* * *

><p>Lyle, still invisible from getting Dream Girl into position, carefully avoided the raging fight.<p>

"You ready?" he whispered to Shrinking Violet, who he had in a tight grip.

She didn't say anything, but started to shrink. He held on until she was too small to grip without crushing.

Salu shrunk down to about the size of a fly before stopping, then used her flight ring to head for Caress.

The spy was fighting two of the best combatants the Legion had to offer. She wasn't going to get away anytime soon, but that was just the distraction. They couldn't let the data Caress had taken leave the grounds of the Ontario Compound.

It was a little difficult to stay out of the way, but Violet was small and used to the flow of battle. She kept a careful eye on everyone's movements and finally managed to reach Caress. She kept pace with the woman for a few moments, searching for a pocket or pouch.

_There._

She dove for the concealed pocket and grabbed the edge, keeping a tight grip as she pulled herself upward.

Shrinking Violet was going to get that information back.

* * *

><p>Laurel was ready to start punching people again, but a voice cut in.<p>

'_Stay back, Andromeda,'_ Brainiac 5 said over her ring.

She hesitated and made a scathing remark.

'_There was absolutely no call for that. _I _am running tactics for this operation, and you _are_ going to listen to me.'_

She wavered, not really swayed by his 'argument'- but the events of that morning were still lingering in her mind.

_He's probably right, whatever he's planning,_ the little dissenting voice in her head –getting louder now- said.

Andromeda clenched her teeth.

"_Fine,_" she growled. "But I _don't_ have to like this, Brainiac."

'_I wasn't expecting you to.'_

* * *

><p>Tasmia was well into the fight now, falling easily into the chaotic patterns of battle. She'd figured out Caress's general tactics- she avoided actually engaging anyone more than she tried to hit- and Dream Girl was fitting in seamlessly with both of their movements.<p>

And then Caress dove forward and grabbed her arm.

It took Shadow Lass by surprise, but she immediately flipped Caress over onto her back- but she didn't let go. She just stood, going through a few contortions that looked extremely painful in the process, and turned to face her.

"You're not getting out of this," she said, yanking her forward.

Tasmia had thought she'd braced herself firmly, but it felt like the spy was using a superpower now. Her foot caught on an uneven spot on the ground and Caress's other hand came for her face.

She blocked it with a forearm, but Caress just grabbed that, too.

It _burned_.

Shadow Lass bit back a scream, tore her arm away, and hit Caress's other arm hard just below the elbow, forcing the muscles that let her clench her hand to relax. She let go with a yelp and stepped back involuntarily.

Dream Girl tried to take advantage of her sudden distraction and kick her side, by Caress turned and stepped away at the same time. Nura's kick left her abdomen open, and the spy swiped at it.

Her hand connected and the fabric disintegrated where she touched.

The other Legionnaire did scream. She stumbled quickly backwards a few steps and collided with the still-invisible Lyle. He snapped back into visibility as the weight of the senior Legionnaire knocked him down to the ground.

* * *

><p>Violet had the information chip.<p>

She kept a firm hold on it as she tried to find a way to get out of Caress's pocket safely.

She heard Nura scream and decided that waiting for a good opportunity was taking too long. She used her flight ring to brace her feet against Caress's leg and started growing, tearing out the pocket as she went.

When she'd almost reached her normal size, a few seconds later, she pushed hard with her feet. The spy was shoved sideways. Violet turned-

-and got an accidental fist in the face from Shadow Lass, who had gotten into position to take out Caress.

* * *

><p>Tasmia winced slightly, not happy about the accident, and dove past her fallen teammate to continue the fight.<p>

* * *

><p>Brainiac 5 stood and flew himself down from the roof, heading straight for Shirking Violet. She would still have the information chip, and that had to be returned to the Complex.<p>

He bent down and looked her over quickly- she wasn't holding it, and he knew for a fact that she didn't have any pockets. Querl checked her belt pouches quickly, but it wasn't there, either.

She must have dropped it.

He started searching the grass.

* * *

><p>Caress had gotten turned around, and could see the fence behind the maniac she was fighting. Nothing she could do seemed to stop this Legionnaire from continuously attacking her. She'd tried burning her more with the acid she could secrete, but either the Legionnaire was too high on adrenaline –or whatever her species' equivalent was- or she was used to it.<p>

A kick she hadn't seen coming knocked her backwards and Caress used her new momentum to roll a few yards away, well out of her attacker's immediate vicinity.

She stopped her evasive maneuver in a crouch and took a quick glance around. The other Legionnaire she'd been fighting was still down, the boy she'd knocked over trying to tend her ineffectively. The maniac was taking a moment's rest to catch her breath, bent over slightly, not looking up-

-and there was someone right next to her, back turned, searching the ground for something.

Caress dove.

* * *

><p>Andromeda saw the danger and acted instantly, using her superspeed to race to Caress's side in a split-second, smashing her fist into the side of her jaw before she'd done more than extend her arm.<p>

The impact shattered the spy's jawbone and spun her around.

The arm she'd been reaching for Brainiac 5 with whipped around bonelessly, the hand catching the front of the Legionnaire's face and dragging down her torso.

Laurel breathed in and felt an immediate, crushing pain start to grow in her lungs.

* * *

><p>Querl spun around, information chip in hand, just in time to see Andromeda fall to the ground, clutching her torso.<p>

"Laurel!" he exclaimed, and scrambled to her side.

She was wheezing heavily through tightly-clenched teeth, curled up as if to protect herself from an attacker. She was shaking, and he could see the glisten of sweat entirely out of place in the pleasantly-cool Torontian air.

The air.

He reached forward and touched the skin of her face.

Her transuit, that kept her protected from the fatally-high levels of lead in Earth's atmosphere, had been dissolved by Caress's acid.

Shadow Lass dropped to her knees next to him and looked at the destroyed uniform Andromeda was wearing.

"Hospital?" she asked him, reaching for her teammate.

"_NO!_" Andromeda forced herself to say through the pain, batting her hand away. The effort cost her, and she hissed in pain. "I will _not_ go to a hospital!"

"Now is _no_ time for your light-cursed xenophobic prejudices!" Tasmia snapped. "Do you _want_ to die?"

Querl shoved the information chip against Shadow Lass's chest.

"No, she's right. Make sure this gets to the Complex Admiral and take care of Shrinking Violet."

"_What?_" she demanded, taking the chip.

"A hospital will not have adequate facilities for treating her. Lead poisoning is at present incurable."

"She's going to die. There's no cure," Lyle said heavily, coming over. He was supporting a woozy Dream Girl.

"The military police finally got here," she mumbled. "About time."

None of them spared a look for the Compound security officials who were arriving to take the unconscious Caress into custody.

"In most cases, yes, she would," Brainiac 5 told them, reaching for Andromeda. She didn't resist. "But _most_ cases do not involve _me_."

"Oh, so you're going to outdo _millennia_ of scientific efforts to find a cure for lead poisoning, just like _that?_" Lyle demanded hotly.

"I have at least five hours as of the time it will most likely take me to get back to Legion Headquarters," Querl told him, lifting off with the semi-conscious Laurel. "That is considerably more than enough time to try."


	4. Xenophobia

**Chapter 3**

"**Xenophobia"**

* * *

><p>Sun Boy was walking past the junction of the entrance hallway on his way to the meeting room.<p>

Something huge loomed in his peripheral vision suddenly and he looked up.

"_Aagh!_" he screamed, jumping backwards in shock.

There was a giant robot there, nearly twice as tall as he was.

"That was _extremely _rude," it said in Brainiac 5's voice.

Dirk stared at him, mouth hanging open.

"Uh- eh-"

His teammate glared at the lower ceiling of the connecting hall with what could only be described as deep loathing and collapsed in on himself in an impressive display of complicated-looking technology, then started down the hallway.

It took a few moments for him to realize that the Coluan was half-dragging a limp Andromeda down the hallway.

"Wh- hey!" he called, and raced after his teammate. "Where's Nura and everyone else?"

"Still in Toronto," Querl told him, focused on the hallway in front of him.

"What's with her?"

"Lead poisoning. Currently fatal and incurable."

That stopped Sun Boy short.

"B-"

He switched gears, refusing to think about what Brainiac 5 had just said.

"Well, when are the _rest_ of them going to be back?" he demanded, catching up.

"No idea. They probably went to the hospital."

"What _happened_ to you guys?"

"Dream Girl and Shadow Lass have acid burns, most likely serious. Shrinking Violet got in the way of one of Shadow Lass's attacks and got herself knocked unconscious."

"Well… what about Lyle?"

"He'll be with them."

They'd reached the hallway with the lab in it.

"But we need them all back _here!_" Sun Boy protested. "Something else has come up!"

"You are going to have to deal with it without any of them," Querl told him firmly, opening the lab doors. "And without me or Andromeda."

He entered the lab, and Dirk caught his last words before the lab doors slid shut again.

"There had better be _no_ disturbances."

* * *

><p>Tyroc tapped his fingers idly on the meeting room table and watched Dirk come in and take his seat.<p>

"You're late," Gim told him disapprovingly from his position at the front of the room.

"Got distracted," he said defensively. "I ran into Brainiac 5 and Andromeda in the hallway."

"What, both of them together?" Garth asked incredulously. "Why didn't we hear the ceiling collapse?"

"Brainiac 5 said she had lead poisoning."

Imra looked at him in alarm.

"_Lead poisoning?_"

"He said he was dealing with it and didn't want any interruptions. Can we just get on with it?"

Cos glanced at Gim.

"You were saying?"

"The city has requested that we help the Science Police out with a barricade around a demonstration."

"What, do they think the protesters are going to get attacked or something?" Dirk asked.

"No," Gim said. "They're worried about the demonstrators attacking."

Element Lad looked concerned.

"Who_ are_ these people?"

Gim coughed and mumbled something.

"What?" Triplicate Girl asked, leaning forward.

"The Human Rights Party," he muttered.

* * *

><p>Dirk winced. This conversation was <em>not<em> going to go well.

"Human Rights…?" Dawnstar asked, trailing off, looking uncertainly at him.

A feeling of foreboding crept over Tyroc.

"This is one of those supremacist groups, isn't it?"

"Not exactly," Gim said quickly, clearly wanting the conversation to be over. "They think aliens are the cause of Earth's problems. They want to force all the aliens off the planet and secede from the UP. They think they have a right to live without having anything to do with non-humans."

"And they want us for this job _why_, then?" Phantom Girl wanted to know.

"Hey, it doesn't apply to _everyone,_" Garth said. "Just you and Imra and Blok and Jan."

Dirk could tell Gim didn't want to take responsibility for this part of the meeting.

"It applies to everyone but me and Gim," he spoke up, standing.

Garth stared at him.

"But I-"

"You're _Winathian,_" he said, cutting his senior teammate off.

"But the original settlers of Winath were humans!" Garth objected. "And Braal, and Marzal, and Carggg-"

"It doesn't matter," Dirk interrupted him again. "To the Human Rights Party, anyone with alien ancestry isn't human enough to be called 'human'."

"They can't just _decide_ that!" Cosmic Boy said heatedly.

Triplicate Girl started protesting at the same time. "I'm Cargggite, but- but I've got more human DNA than anything else, I'm _sure!_"

Tyroc muttered something unflattering under his breath.

"It doesn't matter," Dirk said once more. "When we go down there, the only two they're going to tolerate are me and Gim- and even then, we're with all of _you._"

* * *

><p>When Laurel regained consciousness, she found herself staring up at the ceiling of the lab.<p>

There was glassware _ching_ing softly somewhere nearby.

She forced herself up into a sitting position, shaking all over. She felt weak, weaker than she ever had on Daxam.

Laurel pushed herself off the edge of the medical table and stood for an instant.

Her legs gave out almost immediately, but Brainiac 5 appeared from somewhere and caught her before she hit the floor.

She could feel the texture of his metallic body. Her transuit was gone.

Andromeda tried to pull away on reflex, but Querl kept his grip on her arm and leaned the other way. She wasn't strong enough to get away.

"We've already had this discussion," he told her quietly. "Now get back on the cot."

Laurel hacked violently, and her vision failed for a moment. When it came back, she could see flecks of blood on the floor.

"No," she rasped.

He lifted her back onto the medical bed.

* * *

><p>Sun Boy and Colossal Boy had led the Legion to the police barricade, set up around a main road leading to the newly-renovated Del Portenza Mercy Hospital.<p>

Chief Norg was being yelled at by a man with short brown hair that was starting to fall out on the sides.

"-_cannot stand_ the encroachment of non-humans on our community! Del Portenza was ready for demolition, and we were going to buy it up and refit it as a humans-only facility-"

"You're not allowed to do that," the Legion heard the Chief growl. Lon had spotted them, and it was making one of his famous bad moods worse. "What are _you _doing here?"

"We were ordered by the city-" Gim began.

"This is _my _city!" Chief Norg spat. "_I _am in charge of law enforcement from here to Montaug Point to Kensington!"

He glared around the group.

"And where's my son? If he's _hiding_ from me again-"

"He's in Toronto," Sun Boy told him stiffly. He didn't think Chief Norg warranted explaining the fact that he was in a hospital.

"-Nichola Prince had _no_ right to buy it up and fix it and donate it back to the city-" the man continued, until the last few seconds of conversation sank in and he noticed who the new people were.

"Legionnaires!" he shrieked. "Mi-"

"I really don't think-" Jan started to say.

Lon Norg whirled on the man.

"_SHUT UP; KEELY!"_ he roared. Most of the officers in hearing range – and it was a large one- flinched.

Saturn Girl watched Chief Norg for a moment as he proceeded to begin a scathing lecture.

_:Spread out, Legionnaires. Try not to be intrusive.:_

* * *

><p>Nura looked the nurse tending her at the Torontian hospital straight in the eyes.<p>

"Get ready."

* * *

><p>Querl reached for his chemical containers and talked to Laurel, trying to keep her distracted and conscious.<p>

"The immediate effects of lead poisoning in Daxamites are muscle weakness, generalized pain, dizziness, and nausea," he told her. "Later, severe abdominal pain manifests and hemolysis develops. In the final stage, numbness in extremities and foaming at the mouth occur. The rate of transition between stages depends on the amount of lead a person was exposed to and their body mass-"

There was the sound of retching, and Querl winced and turned.

Laurel had managed to keep her vomit off the bed, but it had landed only half in the trash can he'd put by the bed in anticipation of the event.

He noted the red spots in the fluid and delegated a cleaning drone to sanitizing the floor. Laurel started hacking again and brought her hand up to her mouth. When she pulled it away, she had blood in her palm.

"Hemolysis?" she asked, throat raw.

"Rupture of blood cells," Brainiac 5 told her, pushing her gently back down on the cot and fixing a breathing mask across her face. "Your body will not be able to metabolize oxygen as efficiently as it should. Keep the mask on unless you feel the need to vomit again- unless you truly _want_ to suffocate in your own excreted waste."

He turned and went back to counter and picked up a syringe.

* * *

><p>Dawnstar was watching the right side of the police barricade closest to the hospital when she noticed a bit of movement.<p>

One of the demonstrators, apparently whipped into a frenzy by the chanting and shouting of the larger group, tried to break past the barricade and accost one of the passers-by on the street.

A Science Police officer stepped in and grabbed the man, and Dawnstar was just about to turn her attention elsewhere when a rock shot out of nowhere and hit the officer's helmet with a loud crack. Fracture lines appeared on the helmet, and the officer dropped.

Dawnstar lifted off instantly, immensely grateful for the flight ring she now wore. She would never have to make a running start again, and could make it to the gap before anyone broke through.

* * *

><p>Laurel lay in the bed, hurting too much to move, and felt tears start to trickle down the sides of her face.<p>

She heard Brainiac 5's footsteps and squeezed her eyes shut tightly.

_He's going to _see_._

She turned her head away, and the light seeping through her eyelids changed suddenly.

Andromeda felt a pressure across her chest and opened her eyes again, to find herself staring into a red light projector.

"Brainiac-!" she said, trying to sob from the wave of pain her futile struggle to push her teammate off caused.

"Stay _still,_" he ordered. "I have to take a blood sample, and the more difficult _you _make this means more time _I_ will have to spend over here, and _less _time for _me_ to save your _life._"

She felt a prick in her arm. Whatever pain it caused was lost in the more intense sensations caused by the lead poisoning.

* * *

><p>As fast as Dawnstar was, the Science Police were faster. They had moved to cover the hole as soon as their comrade had fallen, and required no help. She caught an updraft and swung in a wide turn over the demonstrators- and saw one man slip away from the group down an alley.<p>

A quick use of power-

_The rock was _there_, and traveled _this_ path, and this man went from _there _to _here_-_

It was the rock-thrower.

Dawnstar pulled in her wings and dove, turning over in the air to angle down the alley and chase after the man.

* * *

><p>Querl pulled the syringe out of Andromeda's arm and looked down at her.<p>

Her face was wet, and it _might_ have been from the pain-

"You're- crying," he said.

Andromeda just glared fiercely at him, the expression tinged with pain and desperation.

He wavered for a moment, trying to decide what to do, and then walked back to the lab counter. He poured the blood carefully into small depressions on a glass testing slab and observed them at high magnification, watching the pattern of destruction the lead traces had on the blood for a minute or two.

He pulled back and thought for a second, then reached for his chemicals.

* * *

><p>"What are these people's <em>problem<em>, anyway?" Garth muttered.

Imra kept a close watch on the crowd. The demonstrators had started to get more belligerent since one of the officers had fallen from the thrown rock, but she didn't think it was time to step in just yet.

_:They don't like the fact that Del Portenza Mercy is opening up again,:_ she told him. _:This is a mostly-human residential district, and opening up the hospital would mean that more non-humans would be in the area, either for the hospital services or to live.:_

"That's _stupid,_" he said angrily. "There's a whole _galaxy_ out there, and they're trying to keep everybody else out? Earth hasn't been alien free for like a thousand years or something!"

_:One thousand and fifty years or so is the commonly-accepted count, but there's been visits and crashes for millions of years before.:_

_Oh, don't _you_ know everything?_ he thought back, and spoke aloud again.

"Do any of these people even _live _around here?"

_:I don't think-:_

There was someone screaming from inside the crowd, barely audible over the rest of the noise.

Imra strained to hear.

Somebody else had heard it, too, and started screaming the same thing.

She picked up the thought.

_Oh no-_

* * *

><p>Cosmic Boy had lingered by Chief Norg and the Keely man. He wasn't particularly interested in their argument, but they seemed to be the two in charge of the police and the demonstrators, respectively, and he was Legion Leader.<p>

_:GET AWAY NOW!:_ Imra screamed, shoving a jumbled impression of someone else's thoughts at him. It sounded a little echo-y, as though she shouting in the middle of a large room.

It was confusing and unbalancing, but he picked up the main idea.

_Bomb._

"Run!" he ordered the two men, shoving them in the opposite direction of the hospital.

He didn't bother to see if they went or not, and turned immediately back to the building. The other people in the immediate area seemed to have heard Imra's shout, as well. The passers-by were clearing out quickly, and he could hear screams from the far side of the crowd as people tried to shove their way past everyone else and into the city.

_We've done this before and we survived. It wasn't that hard and we can do it again,_ he told himself, trying to keep calm. _Imra-_

_:It's turning into a riot, Cos.:_

* * *

><p>The building shifted slightly, and Laurel could pick up the sound of the explosion clearly even through her lead-poisoning-fogged senses.<p>

"What was that?" she rasped.

"Nothing important," Querl said, carefully letting a few drops of chemical mix.

* * *

><p>Nura pushed herself off the bed and grabbed Lyle.<p>

"There's just been an explosion in New Metropolis," she told him as she towed her teammate out into the hallway and towards the lifts to the ground floor. "And there's rioting."

"What?" Lyle exclaimed. "We- we can't just _leave_ without Shrinking Violet and Shadow Lass! And _you _shouldn't be up!"

"We're not leaving," Nura said firmly, starting down the stairs.

Lyle pulled his arm away so he could descend more safely under his own power.

"Then _where-_"

"The Del Portenza Mercy Hospital didn't have that many patients, but the other hospitals in New Metropolis are full. The people who were already in the hospital are going to get taken up by Gotham and Ontario, but the riot victims are going to come _here._"

* * *

><p>Jan had been closest to the bomb when it went off.<p>

It wasn't as powerful as the one that had gone off in New Metropolis SPDHQ three months back, but it was packed with enough explosives to take out an entire wing of the building.

He threw his arms wide and pictured an invisible field between the street and the hospital, changing anything that passed through it to oxygen.

Element Lad's debris trap caught the worst of the flying wreckage, but some arced over the top of his barrier, and a few chunks shot right through towards the crowd.

He could hear people panicking back there- screams of people trying to get away from the hospital, yells from people caught between the somewhat-functional police barricade and the stampede in back, and the ignored, amplified orders of officers overlaying it all.

Jan noticed a particularly large bit of debris punch through his shield and whirled, tracking it with his eyes. He reached out a hand and the chunk of rubble evaporated as smaller bits of building material pelted him, no longer encountering a transmutative barrier.

He noticed a few other bits of debris hovering over the crowd- Cosmic Boy was at work.

_He shouldn't be focusing on that. Enough people in this crowd are wearing metal that he could make a big difference between the riot being here and it spreading further into the residential areas._

Element Lad focused and the hovering masses evaporated in puffs of oxygen.

He felt a light mental brush in his thoughts and reached out.

_Imra?_

_:Thank you, Jan. Having Rokk doing crowd control out here is helping- but do you think you could move forwards? The Science Police are arresting everyone in reach to try and keep this from spreading –they'll sort everyone out later- and we can't hold all the detainees by ourselves.:_

* * *

><p>Tyroc was not built for riots.<p>

Before the bomb, he'd known that adding more screaming to the already-troubled crowd would be a bad idea.

After the bomb, it made no difference.

The police barricade broke by where he was, and the stampede crashed into him.

There was no time for thought- the panicking mass of humanity buffeted him left and right, no matter how hard he tried to stand still. He put his arms up in front of his face to shield himself, knowing that if he tried to take off he'd just be knocked off his feet.

He went down anyway, and found himself staring at a foot as it came straight at his face.

And then he watched it as it went through his face, saw the inside of the street, and ended up in the sewer.

Phantom Girl held him over the muck below, and let go once he got his bearings.

"_Thank_ you," he gasped, trying to calm his heart.

He looked around and saw Sun Boy sitting on a ledge further down. He was clutching the side of his head.

_"Dirk!"_

The other boy brought his hand away- the side of his face was all bloody.

"Hey. Guess what power _isn't_ helpful if you're trying to keep yourself from getting run over and _not_ set a couple thousand people on fire?"

Phantom Girl reached up through the street and pulled. Two feet started to sink through the ceiling and she spoke quickly.

"I'll hand the people I grab off to you- get them down to the ground as quick as you can and we'll lead them out once the riot's done!"

* * *

><p>Dawnstar landed a split second before the section of the hospital exploded. She was far enough away from the hospital that she didn't feel the shockwave, but it was still unsettling to know that there was a riot going on –she wasn't far enough away to miss the noise from <em>that<em>.

She followed the ribbon of light of the man who'd thrown the rock. It disappeared behind a stack of empty crates.

_You can't hide from me._

Maria ducked behind the crates quickly and grabbed the man.

He was huge.

He threw her off easily and she smacked against the wall, wings uncomfortably squished between her back and the hard surface of the building. She pushed herself off immediately and lunged for the man again, jumping on his back.

The man grabbed her once more and pulled her off, dangling her in the air in front of him.

She grabbed his wrist and tried to dig her fingers into the veins and tendons there, hoping to cause him enough pain to let go- but the man's skin didn't give.

Dawnstar felt the cloth of a glove under her fingers and pulled. The glove tore apart and the man swore, dropping her.

Maria stumbled and fell to the ground, still holding the scrap of cloth. The man kicked her in the stomach and she curled up.

The man growled, stuffed his ungloved hand in his pocket, and kicked her on the side of the head.

* * *

><p>Querl watched the results of his various chemical mixtures carefully. He'd made some good choices the first time around, and a few further combinations had yielded hopeful-looking results.<p>

He mixed up a new batch of chemicals and let a few drops fall into the last unused blood sample.

* * *

><p>Lyle was sure he wasn't going to forget the first trample victim.<p>

It was a woman, her right hand completely shattered. Most of her ribs were cracked, her nose was broken, and both legs were bent at more than one wrong angle. Her hair was matted with blood, and he could just see a sliver of broken skull sticking out from within the tangled mess.

The worst were the bruises, though. They spread over most of her visible skin, and he knew that there was blood collecting in her lungs and stomach.

A team came quickly to cart her off to an Emergency Room, but Lyle was sure she wasn't going to make it.

* * *

><p>Laurel couldn't stop crying.<p>

It wasn't because of the pain- at least not directly.

She couldn't feel her hands or feet anymore.

_Oh Lord, I'm going to _die_._

She wasn't going to survive this. Only the holy Lord Valor had survived this, nearly a thousand years ago- but he had been blessed.

_I'm the farthest thing from that,_ she thought bitterly. _I'm no saint, no priest- I'm not even particularly spiritual! I'm not going to make it._

She started to mumble a prayer under her breath, hoping to keep Brainiac 5 from hearing.

He picked it up anyway.

"Andromeda?" he asked uncertainly. He entered her field of vision and stood there. She could just see his hand hovering a little ways above the top the bed.

"I'm going to die," she told him, unable to keep the anguish out of her voice. "I'm going to die, and I'm never going to go back to Daxam, and I'm never going to see my little brother again-"

She sobbed once, and then bit it back.

"I'm _dying_, Brainiac!" Laurel managed to force out after a minute. "_You can't stop it-_ Daxamite scientists have been working on lead poisoning for _millennia_, and they've _never _found a cure. Not once, not in all those years! _You_ could never hope to, when you've only been working for a few _hours_. Not even if you worked your whole _life_!"

She managed to glare at him.

"Go away and just let me die."

"No _Daxamite_ ever had _my_ intellect," he informed her curtly. "You put too much faith in the abilities of the rest of your species and _entirely_ too little in _mine_. _I _just found your cure."

* * *

><p>An hour after the bomb went off in the hospital, the riot was over.<p>

Lon Norg surveyed the wreckage littering the street. There were people there, demonstrators and officers and civilians. He could see them, lying bloody on the ground.

_We weren't prepared for this at all,_ he thought soberly to himself. _Not for a riot, not for a bomb._

He caught sight of Gim Allon trying to surreptitiously see Gigi Cusimano.

Lon sighed wearily to himself. He didn't have the energy to reprimand either of them.

_They just survived their first riot. They need friends right about now._

_And thank God that Lyle's in Toronto. I never want him in something like this._

"How could you let things get so out of hand, Norg?" a voice from behind him demanded.

It set his teeth on edge.

Keely_. Thrice-cursed _Gideon Keely_._

Chief of Police Lon Norg spun and faced the local leader of the Human Rights Party.

"Demons take you, Keely!" he roared. "This riot was _your_ fault! This was _supposed _to be a peaceful demonstration- _thick-headed, idiotic, short-sighted,_ and _bigoted_; but _peaceful!_ I _know _that I've lost officers today- we didn't come _prepared_ for this! There was _no_ warning _whatsoever!_"

Keely crossed his arms, glared, and then yelled back.

"And no wonder! You let your thinking be contaminated by the lies and faulty judgment of the non-humans below you that you foolishly pay heed to-"

_"MOST OF MY OFFICERS AREN'T HUMAN, YOU SICK-!"_

He bit back the rest of what he was going to say, stood poised for a moment between wrath and fury, then seized the front of Keely's shirt.

_"WHO PLANTED THAT BOMB, KEELY?"_ he demanded. _"WHO WAS IT?"_

Gideon Keely stared at him, wide eyed.

"I-I-I don't know!"

Lon yanked him closer until their faces were almost touching.

"What do you take me for, Keeely, an _idiot?_" he growled, shaking him slightly. "A complete _fool?_ _You_ organized this demonstration. _You_ recruited people to show up. _Who was it?_"

The other man's mouth worked for a moment, and then his thoughts lined up.

"Do you want me to press charges for police brutality?"

A movement in the corner of his eye caught Lon's attention.

It was one of the Legionnaires- Cosmic Boy.

He scowled.

_I can't do this- I can't let the kid see this._

Chief Norg shoved Gideon Keely away, spun him around, and had his hands cuffed behind his back in one swift notion.

"Fine then, Keely. You can come back to the station with me. But you_ will _say who set that bomb."

* * *

><p>Dawnstar awoke to someone calling her name.<p>

"Dawnstar?" Triplicate Girl asked, shaking her again. "Dawnstar!"

Maria forced herself off the ground and Triplicate's other two bodies helped her stand. She looked down at the cloth she still clutched in her hand.

"Are you okay?" Orange-Triplicate-Girl asked worriedly.

"I- believe so…" she answered, trailing off.

She opened her hand and looked at the bit of the glove she'd torn off. It was black, with a white patch shaped like a triangle on it.

"Did you get that off the guy you were chasing?" Purple-Triplicate-Girl asked.

Dawnstar tried to nod her head, but a wave of dizziness swept over her and darkness rushed up behind her eyes. White-Triplicate-Girl steadied her, and she just managed to avoid passing out.

"We'll take it back to HQ," White-Triplicate-Girl told her, taking the cloth from her gently. "Maybe Brainiac 5 can get some DNA or something off it."

* * *

><p>Querl measured out thirty milliliters of his newly-discovered anti-lead serum and poured it into a small cup.<p>

He turned and helped Andromeda to sit up, pulling off her oxygen mask, and put the cup against her lips.

She didn't even complain- she just drank the mixture greedily. Laurel took her final swallow and sat uncertainly.

Then she pushed herself violently off the bed, collapsed to her knees, and retched into the trash can.

Querl turned off the red light projector and squatted down next to her.

"I feel _worse_, Brainiac," Andromeda said accusingly, and retched again.

"You are purging yourself from the majority of lead currently causing damage to your body systems," he informed her. "You need to listen to me very closely- though I do expect that from you at all times, regardless. The serum I just gave you is not a cure for lead poisoning-"

Laurel found time to swear at him in Daxamite before the next bit of vomit came up.

He ignored her.

"-you have lead in your system, and you will never be rid of all of it. However, the serum does suppress the effects. You will not get any worse-"

"So I have to stay like this for the rest of my life?" she demanded.

"Let me _finish._ The difference between your power levels before the poisoning will be almost indistinguishable from your abilities in the future, and any discrepancies are likely to disappear completely once you reach adulthood. You will _not_ take any permanent, lasting damage unless you stop taking the serum. You will take one dosage of serum a day, which I will provide you with."

Andromeda growled wordlessly at him, and Brainiac 5 stood up abruptly.

"I _did_ just save your life," he snapped.

"I don't_ need_ to be grateful to the likes of you," she snarled back.

* * *

><p><em>Excerpt from a Science Police report:<em>

_…Del Portenza Riot left three hundred Human Rights Party demonstrators, five officers, and seventy-two civilians dead. The bomb blast that set off the riot killed two doctors, a nurse, and a janitor in the hospital itself, but injured no hospital patients. Of the two thousand, five hundred and twenty-three estimated demonstrators at the scene, only a very small portion –later found in the sewers- sustained no physical damage. The hospital and surround buildings suffered from the explosion, resultant debris, and riot damage- the area is not expected to be repaired until at least a month from now, and Del Portenza itself needs extensive repairs before it can even begin to think of re-admitting the patients they lost…_


	5. Mistakes

**Chapter 4**

"**Mistakes"**

* * *

><p>Andromeda shoved the door to the lab open, disregarding the hydraulics opening it for her.<p>

"Brainiac!" she called.

"It's on the counter!" he called back from somewhere in the depths of his early-morning project.

Laurel strode over to the counter and grabbed the vial that contained her dosage of anti-lead serum for the day. She popped off the cap and downed it in one gulp, trying to keep the bitter taste of the chemical mixture from reaching her tongue.

She pulled a face as the unpleasant taste started to spread through her mouth. She stuck the vial back into its rack and searched for the sink.

It was across the lab. Laurel spent a second crossing the space and turned the water on, cupping some in her hands to drink.

She welcomed the taste of the water- she could pick out the trace amounts of minerals and chemical cleansers easily, and none tasted as bad as the serum- and tried not to think about the days she'd spent starving, less than a week ago now.

Andromeda turned the water off and searched for a towel or clean cloth to dry her hands off. The lab wasn't messy- Brainiac 5 wouldn't _let _it get messy- but there wasn't a towel nearby, all the same.

Laurel looked around and spotted a bit of cloth further down the counter. She reached for it.

She was about to dry her hands when she saw the shape dyed onto the back.

A white triangle.

Laurel stared at it for a long moment, then stuffed it into one of her belt pouches, wiped her hands on the sides of her pants, and ran back to her room.

* * *

><p>Lighting Lad reached the top of the stairs and turned into Cosmic Boy's office.<p>

"Hey," he said, opening the door. "You didn't come down to breakfast."

Rokk gave him a stern look and pointed at the chair in front of his desk.

Garth sat.

"What did you think you were _doing_ yesterday?" he demanded.

"Uh- handling a riot?"

"Blok had to pick you up and _carry_ you off the scene," Cos said, anger seeping through into his tone. "Because you are a _complete idiot_ and tried to do crowd control by making _electricity!_"

"Hey, electric fences-"

"Electric fences don't generate lethal amounts of voltage!" his teammate yelled. "Were you even _thinking?_ You knocked out _five people!_ We were there to _protect_ the civilians, not _fry_ them! We were trying to keep them _out_ of the hospital!"

"Look, I _tried!_" Garth yelled back. "It's not _my_ fault they ignored it! Anyway, weren't you paying attention? Those guys want to kick people like you and me _off_ the planet! They _deserved-_"

The rage-filled glare Rokk leveled at him made Garth stop in the middle of his sentence.

Cosmic Boy took a deep breathe.

"_You_- Thank- I-"

He squeezed his eyes shut and hit his forehead lightly with the side of his fist.

"I am _not_ having you in this city right now," he said under his breath, dug around in one of his desk drawers, and pulled out a datapad.

He flung it at Garth, who caught it.

"Get out of New Metropolis," Rokk ordered him. "If you're going to be this much trouble, you can go hunt down those missing Lantern rings."

Garth gaped at him.

"But- but that case went cold _months_ ago!"

"So?" Cosmic Boy snapped. "_You're_ the one with the lightning- go heat it up!"

* * *

><p>Laurel sat on her bed and rubbed the cloth between her fingers.<p>

It was thick black cloth, lined with the sheer material transuits were made of. She stared at the whitish lining for a while and then flipped it over to look at the white triangle again.

_What are they_ doing_ here?_ she asked herself. _I'm just supposed to send reports back- they never said anything about coming to me._

The little voices in her head came back.

Brainiac 5_ had it,_ one whispered. _It was in the _lab_. They _know_. You should say something before they come after you._

_If they knew he would have come out when I walked in this morning!,_ the other one shot back. They don't know_. You don't have to tell, you don't have to say _anything.

_You should. He _saved _you- _they _saved you. You _should_._

_Uncle Roger,_ the second voice snarled. _Aunt Aurelia._

_No!_ she recoiled from the memory.

Clarence! _Clarence Clarence Clarence Clarence_ Clarence!

Laurel dropped the bit of cloth and grabbed her head.

No!_ No no no no no _no!_ That _won't _happen! They _said _it wouldn't! They _promised!

_They promised so long as you never said. _You can't tell.

Andromeda sniffed, trying to not sob, and fell sideways onto the mattress; curling up, clutching the cloth in one hand.

_I _could_ track this,_ she thought eventually. _It's been in the lab, but- it'll still _smell_ like whoever was wearing it, right?_

* * *

><p>Lighting Lad got to the bottom of the stairs and sat down, head in his hands.<p>

_:Garth?:_

_Imra?_

_:Who else?:_ she asked. He could hear a touch of amusement in her mental voice. _:I heard shouting.:_

_Rokk stuck me with a dead-end mission for riot control yesterday._

_:It really _wasn't_ a very good idea, Garth.:_

He groaned and leaned back against the steps.

_Is _everyone_ going to tell me that today?_

_:Well, you won't find out. You're not supposed to even be _in _New Metropolis right now.:_

_I don't have to go just because he's mad at me,_ Garth thought sullenly at her.

_:He's Legion Leader,:_ Imra told him sternly. _:You _do_.:_

He stood and trudged off down the hall.

_I don't even know where to _start!

_:You could go back to Ms. Prince's mansion.:_

_Yeah, because she's just going to let me walk into her house._

_:She's still missing those Lantern rings, and I'm sure she wants them back. And you're _law enforcement._ It's not like you're just some stranger in off the street asking for a tour of the mansion.:_

Garth sighed.

_I guess._

He waited until he'd reached the doors to talk again.

_Hey, Imra? Would you come with me?_

* * *

><p>Andromeda drifted over the city.<p>

She was fairly certain that she'd picked up a trace of the person who'd been wearing the cloth, but she wasn't completely sure.

There was only one thing for it. She'd have to go down.

Laurel landed in a wide section of a back alley on the edge of the East City Slums and College Town. It was a strange place to find the people she was looking for, but nobody ever bothered with the slums.

No one would find them.

She wandered around the back ways for what seemed like hours, ducking into corners and niches whenever she heard someone coming, never going out onto the main streets. The scent was very, very faint, and she nearly lost it any number of times, but finally she tracked it through a destroyed door to an abandoned hotel and up a collapsed staircase.

And then it stopped.

Andromeda punched the wall in frustration, crushing part of the bricks there.

Dawnstar _could have done this! It would have been _easy _for her, she's _bet_-_

Laurel pulled herself up and tried to sort out her mind in bewilderment.

_Where did _that _come from? I'm _Daxamite_, and _she's_-_

The voices came again.

_A natural tracker._

_An _alien_, _said the other.

_But it's _true! the first insisted.

_But it's _wrong! the other persisted.

"But it can't be _both!_" Laurel said quietly to herself.

Then someone grabbed her from behind, spun her around, and slammed her, back-first, into the wall. She struggled, but her attacker was leaning on her, one arm across her breastbone, and he was too strong for her.

"Hello there, Laurel _Gand._"

* * *

><p>Lighting Lad and Saturn Girl touched down in the gardens of Nichola Prince's mansion. The old apple trees were starting to flower; and Imra pulled a branch down to smell the blossoms.<p>

Garth continued on his monologue.

"- and it's not like there was much else I _could_ do!" he complained. "Throwing lightning around isn't going to make people calm _down!_ And if I stunned somebody they'd just get trampled! A fence was the best thing I could come up with right away! Did he _want _me to just stand there or something?"

Imra made a noncommittal noise to let him know she was still listening.

"If I did _that_ he'd just yell at me for _that_ instead! Can't I do _anything_ right? I _tried!_ Just because it wasn't really _useful _doesn't mean I should get _this_ shoved on me! Dirk didn't use _his _powers at all!"

He glared at tree and then looked around the clearing.

"And I _had _it all under control!" Garth exclaimed, spreading his arms. "See?"

The air crackled as gas particles suddenly became charged and electricity arced through the air.

Saturn Girl let go of the branch in shock and it snapped back into place, dislodging apple petals.

"_Garth!_" she yelled, and dashed over to grab his arm and break the electric field he'd set up.

When she yanked her teammate's arm down, his concentration broke completely.

Lightning shot through the air and hit a tree. The trunk charred and _crack_ed loudly, splitting down the middle, and the noise echoing through the gardens.

* * *

><p>Laurel to breathe deeply and managed to get a thin stream of air into her lungs through her nose.<p>

She stared at the man who had pinned her to the wall.

Brown hair, brown eyes, fair skin- and a familiar face.

"Kivun Roxxas," she wheezed. "Did your father send you to get my report?"

He smirked at her.

"Of _course_ not- he doesn't know I'm _her-_ and _you're_ not going to tell him, are you?"

He leaned more on her, and Laurel's air cut off completely.

She shook her head frantically and gasped as he eased up some.

"Good. Now, why are _you _here?"

"They-"

"_Who?_" Kivun demanded, applying more pressure.

"The Legion!" she forced out. "The Legion had part of a White Triangle uniform! I saw it in the lab and took it when no one was looking and came looking to see who else was on Earth!"

"Do they know?" another man growled. She saw him out of the corner of her eye- massive and red-haired. He was missing part of his glove, and patch of transuit material had been stuck over it.

"I- I don't know," Laurel told them. "Nobody said anything-"

"Doesn't mean they don't know," a woman with brown hair said.

"Why would they tell _her,_ anyway?" added a similar-looking man.

_Where are they all _coming_ from? _

"What are you all doing here?" she asked.

Kivun leaned on her more, and Laurel's vision started to go dark before she could breathe again.

"Did I _say _you could talk? And it's none of your _business- Gand_."

He stepped back and Andromeda hit the floor.

* * *

><p>Garth stared at the lighting-struck tree in horror.<p>

"_Imra-_"

A gardener burst into the apple grove, eyes wild.

"Mr. Marville, in here!" he called.

A large dark-haired man in a suit pushed his way through the trees and glared darkly down at the two Legionnaires, arms crossed.

"_Well?_" he demanded after a moment.

"Um-" Garth squeaked. "We were just standing here-"

"I am not an _idiot_, young man," Mr. Marville informed him. "I _know_ what lightning sounds like."

He pointed to the Legionnaires chest, where the lightning bolts of his crest were.

"Don't try and convince _me_ that _you_ were 'just standing here'."

Garth turned red and looked at his feet.

Saturn Girl stepped in.

"I'm very, very sorry, Mr. Marville. We can-"

"You can come and see Ms. Prince, _that's_ what you can do."

* * *

><p>Laurel stayed there on the floor for a second before scrambling for the ruined staircase.<p>

A foot came down right in front of her nose and she froze.

"Why don't you tell us what you were going to tell us earlier?" the large red-haired man said.

Laurel backed up and hit the legs of yet another man, this one bald.

_They've got me surrounded._

"I don't _have_ to," she told them, trying to sound calm and unafraid.

Kivun Roxxas smiled at her, reached into a pocket, and tossed her a small oval-shaped object, convex on one side. When she caught it, it _click_ed on and projected a picture.

Laurel went cold.

_Clarence!_

"Your father _promised_ he wouldn't be hurt if I_-_"

"I'm not my father," Roxxas told her.

"He's the _leader_ of the White Triangle-"

"And I have my own people," he said smugly, gesturing at the others in the room.

_Oh Lord, they'll kill him,_ she realized. _He'll kill him like his father had Aunt Aurelia and Uncle Roger killed._

* * *

><p>Mr. Marville led Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl into the mansion and up a flight of stairs to the study.<p>

"Ms. Prince," he called, opening the doors.

Nichola Prince was sitting behind a large wood desk. Thick curtains were tied back to let some sunlight in through the slightly-dirty windows.

She looked up and spotted the Legionnaires.

"Ah, William," Nichola said pleasantly. "You brought me guests!"

"They were in the garden. The apple orchard-"

"I heard, William. Thank you for bringing them in."

The butler grumbled a little and walked out, closing the door behind him.

"I'm _very_ sorry about the apple tree," Imra told her. "We can pay-"

"I'm _rich,_ Saturn Girl," Nichola Prince reminded her gently. "I can pay for my own trees. And you'll have to forgive William- usually he's a lot perkier, but he's _very_ attached to those apple trees. He brought them from his old home."

"They're very nice trees," Imra said politely.

Nichola smiled.

"Thank you- I'll tell him you said that. Now, what brings _you_ here, Legionnaires? I don't think you came all this way just to fry an apple tree."

"It wasn't _that_ far- just across the bay."

Garth opened his mouth, and suddenly Imra remembered something.

"You funded the Del Portenza renovations, didn't you?"

Nichola's smile faded.

"Yes, I did. It's an old hospital, and it didn't deserve to just stand there falling apart. I never imagined that there would be so much trouble over it."

"Why _that_ hospital?" Lighting Lad asked. "There's a lot of other ones that don't need so much money-"

"I have plenty of money. That hospital was named after an old financier who did a lot of good, and the hospital itself has done a lot of good. The last people to donate to it were the Count and Countess Bennet. I've known them for a long time now, and I know that Del Portenza is close to Countess Erica's heart. The Bennet's money was tied up in other things, so I donated some money in all of our names to keep it going."

* * *

><p>Andromeda swallowed and turned the projector off.<p>

"The Legionnaires who joined at the same time I did were arguing a lot at first, but then they started getting used to each other and it mostly stopped. The ones who have been around longer don't usually argue, but Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad get at each other a lot. Lightning Lad also can't stand Dream Girl, for some reason. But everybody else is friendly with everyone else, almost."

One of the Daxamites growled.

"Friendly with each _other?_ They _actually_ enjoy fraternizing with people who aren't their own kind?"

She nodded.

"That's nothing _new,_ Bec-Ur," Roxxas said dismissively. "We already _knew_ aliens were too stupid to realize what they were doing."

He looked down at Laurel.

"Tell us about them- their powers, how they fight."

"Everyone takes their orders from Cosmic Boy," she told them. "He gets his advice from Saturn Girl and the lab team. He always listens when she says something. Invisible Kid can turn himself invisible, but that's it. You can still hear him, smell him, that sort of thing. Shrinking Violet can shrink so small that I can't even see her. Shadow Lass can make a darkness that's impossible to see through. Sun Boy can make fire but can't fight very well. Dream Girl sees the future in her dreams and knows what will happen next when she's awake, and fights well with that. Saturn Girl messes with your head, and she's good in hand-to-hand combat, too. Triplicate Girl can split into three but I don't think she's very good at fighting."

Andromeda racked her brains for something else.

"Blok is made of stone and doesn't care if you hit him. Element Lad- Element Lad can change anything into anything else. If he didn't want you doing something, there's nothing you could do to stop him."

"_Tromians!_" the brown-haired woman growled. "When they-"

Roxxas silenced her with a glare.

"_Later,_ Do-Nah."

Andromeda saw her chance. Everyone was focused on Roxxas and the woman.

She ran past the man in front of her as fast as she could, headed for the stairs again.

One of the men caught her before she'd gone more than a foot, grabbing her arms and twisting them up behind her back.

Laurel felt his sharp, surprised intake of breath on the back of her neck.

"She's not wearing a transuit!"

* * *

><p>Garth and Imra left Nichola Prince's mansion with even more reassurances that she wasn't angry about the apple tree. The butler glared at them as they walked out, but there was no further incident.<p>

"We never asked about the rings," Lighting Lad said. "Not that I'm _complaining!_ But I don't want to get yelled at more."

He stared down the street thoughtfully.

"Let's go see the Sci-Pols. I bet Rokk doesn't know what's going on with that Keely guy."

* * *

><p>Kivun Roxxas snatched Laurel from his underling and slammed her against the wall again.<p>

"_How can you survive without a transuit?_" he roared.

Laurel flinched and tried to pull away and he shook her, knocking her head against the wall.

"_TELL ME!_"

He grabbed her throat and squeezed.

* * *

><p>Imra buried her face in her hands.<p>

_I should have asked Nura if it was a good idea to come with Garth before I left. Better yet, I should be a precog._

The two of them had managed to get into New Metropolis SPD HQ despite the animosity between the Legionnaires and the police. They'd managed to find their way to the holding cells and even got into the offices for the officers assigned to the cells.

And there they had met Captain Hagbard.

"Get out of here before I call Chief Norg!" the Captain yelled.

"You've been saying that for the last five minutes!" Garth shot back. "Just do it already!"

"You have no right to be in here! Who let you in?"

"The secretary, who else? What's up with Keely?"

"I don't have to tell you, you little ruffian! Get out!"

Saturn Girl sighed.

Her head shot up.

Someone was calling- someone was _thinking_ at her.

She reached back tentatively.

_-hello? Saturn Girl-_

_:Yes?:_

She felt the person she was talking to jump.

_:Sorry. Did I startle you?:_

_I was expecting it to feel like that. Anyway, Keely didn't know who set off that bomb. Our telepaths confirmed it._

_:Who_ are_ you, anyway?:_

Right in front of you.

Imra looked around the room. There was a junior officer seated at a desk. She'd thought he'd been focused on the paperwork, and doing his best to shut out the shouting match.

_I went to the cadet school with Gim- uh, Co-_

_:I know who he is. Who are you?:_

_Quav. How's Gim doing, anyway?_

_:He's been doing fine. He managed not the get hurt in the riot, despite how big he is.:_

_Great! I'll tell Gigi when I see her later._

Saturn Girl stood.

"Come on, Garth. Let's get out of here before you get yourself into even _more_ trouble."

* * *

><p><em>You owe them you owe them you owe them and you've already sold them out and they can't know that much about the Legion if they asked you shouldn't tell-<em>

"Anti-lead serum!" Andromeda tried to scream with the last of her air.

"What?" Roxxas demanded, letting go of her throat.

Laurel wheezed. Her throat burned, and felt cramped and raw.

"Anti-lead serum," she said again, voice almost gone. "I was in Toronto the day of the riot, and my transuit got ripped. I got lead poisoning-"

"But you're _here!_"

"Brainiac 5-"

Roxxas swore loudly and spat on the ground.

"_Brainiac?_ Those- those _alien abominations_ let a _Brainiac_ into their _organization?_ Onto their _planet?_"

"I don't think they know," Laurel said, clutching her throat.

"And you _let_ him _experiment_ on you?"

"It wasn't an _experiment._ I was _dying-_"

Roxxas kicked her in the stomach and her midsection exploded in pain. Laurel curled up around herself and whimpered.

"My father should have had your brother killed while he had the chance, _Gand!_" he screamed.

Kivun Roxxas grabbed Andromeda's shoulder, hauled her up, and shoved her towards the stairs. She stumbled and fell down to the first floor, then scrambled for the door.

"You get that serum for us, Gand!" Roxxas yelled after her. "And tell those Legionnaires what's lurking in their midst- and maybe we'll _forget _that you have a little brother!"


	6. Armistice

**Chapter 5**

"**Armistice"**

* * *

><p>Salu stared at the ceiling of her room.<p>

It was still dark out, and the building was silent.

_I shouldn't have just up and left so suddenly. I didn't even tell Mama were I was going. I woke up this early that day, too._

But it had been for a different reason then.

_I planned it then. I had to get away, but-_

Her mother would have woken up at her usual time and called for her. Salu pictured her walking down the hall and opening the door, to find an empty bed.

_I shouldn't have done it._

She rolled over and hugged her pillow.

_I abandoned her on the day she buried Uncle Boza. What was I _thinking?_ I should have stayed._

* * *

><p>Rokk groaned and stared out the window.<p>

It was too _early_ for this.

_Brainiac 5 and his stupid computer,_ he though irritably. _What sort of a name is 'COMPUTO', anyway? Was he trying to be _funny?

He played back the message that had woken him up at this unholy hour.

'_We have a mission. Get up and report to the meeting room for a briefing.'_

* * *

><p>Querl stood in the front of the meeting room on the slightly-raised section of the floor as the still-sleepy Legionnaires straggled in.<p>

Invisible Kid was the last to arrive, and he started as soon as his lab partner had sat down.

"I was informed by the United Planets half an hour ago that we are needed in the Irulan system," he said, pointing at a star map that he'd projected. "We are to provide security for a peace talk and act as guards for the United Planets representatives and the attendant mediators."

"Where is Irulan?" Lyle asked groggily.

Querl frowned at him.

"You are a xenobiochemist, aren't you?"

"Sorry, I am not awake right now."

"That is no excuse."

"Could you just_ tell_ us, Brainy?" Triplicate Girl asked. "Nobody else knows where this place is."

"That is not my name!" he snapped.

"Irulan is Imsk's system," Shrinking Violet said.

Everyone looked at her.

"And Braal's," Cosmic Boy added.

Lyle stared at them for a moment.

"Sorry," he muttered, and put his head down on the table. Shadow Lass elbowed him until he sat up again.

"They're trying to have _another_ conference?"

"It would seem that they believe that it will accomplish something this time."

"You mean the _United Planets_ thinks it will accomplish something," Rokk said. "Imsk would _never_-"

He corrected himself hastily.

"-nobody involved _ever_ comes to the table voluntarily."

Brainy shrugged.

"Be as that may, we would not in the normal course of things be ordered to provide security for these sorts of functions, but both Imsk and Braal have their share of anti-reconciliatory terrorist sects-"

A number of the Legionnaires groaned at once.

"Can we _not_ deal with any more specist terrorists?" Colossal Boy asked.

"It would appear that there are too many to avoid, Colossal Boy. Moreover, to decrease the risk of anyone actually encountering said terrorists, the peace conference is being held on a United Planets ship in the asteroid belt between the two planets. We are to land there and proceed to the conference room."

"They can't be that scared of terrorists if they've set up a whole ship," Sun Boy said.

"We are also there to make sure the talk does not get- out of hand."

"So they're dragging us out to a different star system just after midnight to make sure that the delegations don't murder each other?" Shadow Lass asked.

Querl paused.

"Essentially, yes."

"What is so bad between your planets that murder would be a concern?" Element Lad asked, turning to Cosmic Boy.

Rokk slouched down into his chair.

"Venado Bay."

Expectant silence filled the room.

Brainiac 5 picked up the explanation.

"Venado Bay is the name given separately to an actual bay, a military base, a battle, and a prisoner of war camp. About a decade ago, Imskian forces made a covert landing on Braal and proceed to the Venado Bay military base, located on a body of water of the same name, to attempt to capture it and from there mount an assault on the rest of the planet's military strength. However, the Venado base responded quickly to the threat, resulting in the Battle of Venado Bay. Many Imskian soldiers were taken prisoner and held in what came to be known as the Venado Bay camp-"

"The UP forced Braal and Imsk to sign a peace treaty a year later to end the war," Cosmic Boy interrupted quickly. "The treaty said that all the prisoners in the camp had to be let go-"

"But Braal demanded a ransom for each prisoner," Shrinking Violet said. "Imsk paid each one, because the soldiers weren't getting fed properly and weren't given any protection or medical treatment. Half of the Imskians died from disease and exposure. Braal demanded twice the amount for a dead soldier than a live one, and then sent the bones back in unlabeled bags, not caring if pieces they'd put together belonged together."

The room went completely silent.

"Uh-" Lyle began.

Salu looked at Rokk. He flinched.

"My _mother_ was in Venado Bay."

* * *

><p>The Founders sat on the bridge of the Legion cruiser as the ship sped towards the Irulan system.<p>

"Rokk-" Imra ventured.

"Oh Lord, her _mother!_" he groaned, burying his face in his hands. "It was _bad_ _enough_ already-"

"Now, hey," Garth started to say.

"I am_ never _going to be able to speak to her again."

"Yes, you will, Rokk," Imra told him firmly. "You are Legion Leader, and it's not like she's going to attack you or something."

"Do you know that for a fact?" he muttered.

"What I don't get," Garth said loudly. "Is why something like that would happen. What were you guys fighting about in the first place, anyway? Religion or something?"

"Mining rights."

The other boy stared at him incredulously.

"You were fighting over_ rocks?"_

"_Mining is serious business!"_

* * *

><p>"Ship's coming up," Sun Boy announced. "Everybody find a seat while I land."<p>

The cruiser docked in the much larger UP ship easily, with barely any jolt as it landed.

The UP delegates were waiting in the docking bay when the Legionnaires descended.

Saturn Girl slowed and bowed to one of them.

"It's good to see you, Mr. Ivar," she said.

The taller diplomat bowed back.

"It is a pleasure to see you again as well, Miss Ardeen. I trust you have been well?"

_You know this guy?_ Phantom Girl though at her teammate.

It wasn't Saturn Girl who answered.

_:We have met a few times, yes,:_ the diplomat answered.

Tinya stared at him, and noticed the distinctively-shaped large eyes.

"Um-"

Ivar smiled at her.

"No, I understand. It is an easy way to communicate without appearing to be rude."

She blushed and the other delegate chuckled.

"Don't startle them_ too_ much, Xamuel. They need to be able to focus."

"I don't believe I was that much of a shock, Arn."

"You're _Braalian,_" Cosmic Boy said.

The second delegate shrugged.

"I know, it seems like a bad choice- but they really sent Xamuel, here," he said, elbowing the other man. "We're partners, him and I. I just follow him around when he gets assignments."

"I follow you around, as well," Ivar retorted. "Come, Legionnaires. The conference is scheduled to begin soon."

* * *

><p>Laurel watched the Legionnaires walk out of the docking bay from the window of the onboard lab.<p>

She turned away and leaned against the wall, watching Brainiac 5. He had also stayed on the ship, and was now patching into the UP ship's security systems.

'_I will _not_ have you go into that meeting,' _he'd told her just before the landed. _'This is a peace conference, and they _already_ have a surfeit of bigotry in that room- you don't need to add _more_.'_

It was true; and it hurt.

_When did I start caring about that?_

* * *

><p>Shrinking Violet hung back behind Shadow Lass and Dream Girl to survey the room properly before making a move.<p>

The Braalian group was on the near side of the room, and the Imskians on the far. If she was going to go talk to any of her people, she would have to go through them.

One of the junior Braalian military officers, clearly new to his position from his age, caught sight of her and elbowed the man next to him, also a junior officer. They both gave her hostile looks.

Her hand drifted unconsciously to her hip, where she had worn her gun back when she was getting daily fighting training. The junior officers were tripping all her 'hostile' senses.

_Mama _did_ say that I'd know what it felt like when it happened. And I never believed her._

* * *

><p>Element Lad had headed for the table immediately.<p>

The mediators were clustered there, and he had spotted some fellow souls.

Jan skirted the edges of the ongoing conversations until one of the mediators noticed him.

The woman smiled widely and clasped both his hands.

"Why, Jan Arrah!" she exclaimed in Tromian. "How good to see you!"

"It is good to see you as well, my lady," he replied politely. He didn't know the woman, but it was nice to talk to another Tromian.

Her companions drifted towards them, and Dream Girl appeared at Jan's side. She bowed slightly to the woman, who returned the gesture.

"Hello there, Miss Nal."

Nura smiled at her and clasped her hands in the same manner that the woman had Jan's.

"It makes me much more hopeful to see a Tromian delegation here, Madame Mediator. Your people have well deserved their reputation as peacemakers, and it bodes well for these talks that you are attending."

"Well, we do hope to have some positive bearing on the outcomes of these talks, though we will not be so presumptuous as to believe that we can smooth over centuries of conflict over the course on one meeting! Come, you two must meet the my associates-"

* * *

><p>Cosmic Boy found himself hijacked by the a distinguished-looking Braalian delegate almost immediately.<p>

"Rokk Krinn!" the man said loudly. "Good to have you here, son!"

"Uh- thank you, sir," he said uncertainly. The man wore the uniform of military officer, but he wasn't sure which rank. It was most likely important thought, judging by the sheer amount of decoration on it.

"General Husn," the man said, shaking Rokk's hand vigorously. "I have to say that I'm sad we all missed the opportunity to see you on the magnoball circuit –I heard you had a promising career ahead of you- but working for the United Planets is certainly quite an accomplishment."

Rokk didn't like to think about magnoball nowadays, but thanked him anyway.

Memory clicked together.

"You commanded Venado Bay," he said.

"Still do!" General Husn said proudly. "Finest command there is!"

Cosmic Boy's eyes flicked to the Imskian delegation. A few of the delegates on the edge of the group were glancing at him.

_Oh Lord, I've been spotted with him- this is a peace talk, I'm _supposed _to be impartial!_

* * *

><p>Andromeda was still watching Brainiac 5, but now she was struggling herself again.<p>

_I _have_ to ask,_ she decided. _Ever since- ever since Roxxas, two months ago, it's been bothering me._

She hadn't figured out a way to get at the formula for the anti-lead serum yet, and wasn't likely to anytime soon. Brainiac 5 was always in his lab, it seemed, and there was no way to get into the computer without him knowing.

She was also ignoring the fact that she actually seemed to care about what he said to her, and trying to ignore the fact that she was ignoring it.

"They don't know, do they?" Laurel asked.

"Excuse me?" Brainy asked.

She walked over to him and sat down on the counter.

"You _know _what, Brainiac."

He stared intently at the computer screen in front of him and ignored her completely, but Laurel knew better.

She kept standing there.

"Were you planning on telling them?" he asked after a few tense minutes.

Andromeda wandered off.

* * *

><p><em>It's not worth the trouble to go over there<em>, Salu told herself.

There were fourteen security points to cover in the conference room, and with Brainiac 5 and Andromeda on the ship, they had just enough people to cover them all. The points hadn't actually been assigned, so Shrinking Violet took up position in the nearest one- which was, unfortunately, closer to the Braalian delegation than anyone else.

The junior officers started talking a little louder than before.

"I'm surprised the Legion is here," one said.

"Yes, well, no doubt they were called in to make sure things don't get out of hand," replied the other.

"Well, there won't be any trouble from _us_."

"Oh, I'm sure _we're_ not the ones who worry them."

There was a short lapse in conversation and one of them glanced over at her.

Shrinking Violet kept staring stoically into the air in front of her.

"Can you _imagine,_ though? Being Rokk Krinn?"

"Can you imagine how it must have been after the _last_ recruitment?"

Ignoring them was not working.

"It baffles me myself. He _is_ Braalian, isn't he? I thought he'd have more _sense_ than to let the _riff-raff_ in."

"Perhaps he was feeling- _generous_ that day."

"No, it must have been an off day. _Everyone_ has judgment lapses _sometimes._"

* * *

><p>Cosmic Boy glanced over at the junior officers. It was easy to see what was going on, but he wasn't sure how to pull himself away from General Husn politely.<p>

"General, I-"

The General hooked his arm around Cos's shoulders.

"So how has New Metropolis been treating you? Gone sightseeing yet?"

"Actually, sir, I haven't seen that much of the city. Now, if-"

"_Nonsense!_ You've been in the most famous city on Earth for two years and you haven't even done a little bit of exploring? Certainly you're not on the job all the time!"

"I have a duty to perform to the galaxy and my teammates," Rokk told him stiffly, glancing at Shrinking Violet and the junior officers again. "Like now-"

"You have an entire team with that duty, don't you? They can take up a bit more work to let you have some time off! Or do you not trust them?"

_He's trying to get me say yes,_ he realized. _He's trying to make me say yes so that he can start talking about Shrinking Violet. _

Cosmic Boy tried to step away, but the General followed him.

The Legionnaire looked up at the General, who had a wide smile plastered on his face that didn't reach his eyes.

_He's trying to keep me from helping Shriking Violet!_

* * *

><p><em>"Lyle!"<em> Shadow Lass said quietly, trying not to move her mouth.

"Yeah?" he asked. For once he hadn't faded out, and was still completely visible. Currently he was busy checking over the door closest to the Imskian delegation.

"Don't you _see_ what's going on over there?"

"Over where?"

"With _Violet!_ Those Braalians are _baiting_ her!"

Lyle turned a looked.

"You sure?"

"I _know_ what insults sound like!" Tasmia snapped. "Any ideas?"

He shrugged. "Go over there and distract her? Unless you were planning on attacking the officers."

"This is a _peace conference_, Lyle! I _know_ better than that!"

Lyle finished checking the door and turned.

One of the Imskian representatives intercepted them before they'd gone more than a dozen feet.

"I have to say, I wasn't ever expecting to meet the Shadow Champion of Talok VIII," the woman said, grabbing Tasmia's hand. "What made you decide to leave your people and join the Legion? I don't think there's been a precedent for that. Usually Talokians like to stay on their own world."

"There's_ plenty _of precedent, for Talokians in general and Shadow Champions-"

Someone tapped Lyle on the shoulder and he turned.

A youngish-looking man smiled brightly at him.

"Your power is invisibility, right? How do you fight with that?"

Lyle could just see Shrinking Violet over the man's shoulder, and realized that the woman talking to Tasmia had positioned herself between in a similar manner.

It was almost impossible to tell where Tasmia was looking due to her completely black eyes, but Lyle was certain she was looking at him sideways.

_Could it be _any_ more obvious that they don't want us interfering?_

* * *

><p>Brainiac 5 had been ignoring Andromeda ever since she'd asked her question, and normally she'd be perfectly fine with that.<p>

But now there was nothing to distract her from the knowledge of her self-delusion.

_I can't ignore this any longer,_ she decided. _I've been putting off stealing that formula, and I've been putting off telling the others about Brainiac 5, and I've been ignoring-_

She grimaced.

_-I've been ignoring the fact that I've been a bad Daxamite._

Laurel sighed and rested her hand in her palm.

_A bad Daxamite?_ whispered one of her voices. _But this is what Clarence would have done._

_But Clarence got arrested-_

_And you broke him out, because you knew he wasn't a bad person. So if he can do this sort of thing and not be a bad person, how can you do the same thing and be a bad Daxamite?_

_I-I don't-_

She stopped.

_Wait…_

* * *

><p>Salu clenched her teeth.<p>

It is not worth losing my temper over this, she told herself. It is not worth losing my temper over this. It is not worth-

"I heard that there were people missing from that riot the Legion was involved in a couple months back. Guess who didn't show up."

"Yes, I'd heard. I wonder why there was anyone absent. Do you think that perhaps the Legion forgot to check up on the fighting ability of-"

_I _know_ how to fight!_

Shrinking Violet opened her mouth, and her ring beeped.

'_Shrinking Violet, I need your assistance in the cruiser lab,'_ Brainiac 5 said.

"You _never-_"

'_I believe that I am _intelligent_ enough to know when to request assistance,'_ he snapped. 'The cruiser lab.'

Salu spun and left the room, trying to ignore the quiet chuckles she could just hear from the junior officers.

* * *

><p>Andromeda heard Shrinking Violet stomp up down the hallway to the cruiser lab.<p>

_"_Why_ did you pull me out?"_ she demanded as soon as the door opened. "I _had_ it _under control!_"

"Are you _certain_ about that?" Brainy asked dryly, still focused on the security feeds. "Because _I_ know that my call interrupted you beginning to say something that I am _sure_ you would regret later."

_"I had it under control!"_

"No, I don't believe you did. You would have jeopardized the beginnings of the peace summit by confronting those two Braalian junior officers."

"Me confronting them would just be an _excuse_ and you _know_ it!" Salu snapped. _"Why did you pull me out?"_

Querl glanced over at her, and then looked back at the computer screens.

"No one should have to stand there and listen to people talk about them."

* * *

><p>Cosmic Boy managed to detach himself from General Husn and the Braalian delegation less than a minute after Shrinking Violet left the room.<p>

He retreated to the opposite corner of the room, as far away from both the Braalian and Imskian delegations as possible.

_I _knew_ this was going to get- bad, but the conference hasn't even _started_ yet! And I didn't expect the _Legion_ to get dragged into it! We weren't _supposed_ to get involved!_

He fidgeted and wished for the talks to start, and noticed one of the Imskian delegates looking at him.

_What am I supposed to _do?_ If I ignore her, she might get offended, but if I go over there and talk to her she'll probably try to insult me-_

Something occurred to him.

_And what am I going to do with Shrinking Violet? I was standing _right there,_ and I don't know if she noticed that I was trying to get away and help out. And if I tell her she might decide that I wasn't _really_ trying- oh Lord-_

_:_Stop _it already!: _Imra snapped at him. :_She's just a _little girl_, Rokk! She's only ten years old! She's _not_ going to just suddenly _attack _you!:_

_But she's-_

_:Saturn's rings, Rokk! You're nearly as bad as _Andromeda _with this! _Yes_, Shrinking Violet is Imskian! _Yes_, you're Braalian! Get over it!:_

_Her _mother_-_

_:Was in Venado Bay, yes! But it's not like she _blames you_ for everything that's happened between her planet and yours for the last thousand years or so!:_

_But-_

_:No 'but's! It doesn't matter to _her_; it shouldn't matter to _you!_:_

That stopped him cold.

_Wait- it doesn't matter to her?_

Rokk felt Imra roll her eyes.

_:I swear, it's like I'm talking to Garth.:_

_:Excuse me,: _another voice cut in. _:I know that this is a private conversation, but, Miss Ardeen, Mr. Krinn-:_

_:Yes, Mr. Ivar?:_

_:Is it _really_ wise to have one of the guard points open? I heard Shrinking Violet get recalled, and I'm_ sure_ it was for a good reason, but it _does_ make a hole in security.: _

* * *

><p>Laurel thought back on some of the thinking that had bothered her.<p>

She had caught herself thinking good things about her teammates; even thinking that they were better than her-

-Dawnstar _could have done this!_-

-and that she should be grateful to them, for not ignoring her or letting her die-

_-You owe them you owe them you owe them-_

_-_and she had always squashed the thoughts once she realized what she was thinking.

_But _Clarence _would think like this. He _does_ think like this. That's why they arrested him. I _love _him, so why am I doing this? _

_Because you're trying to be a good Daxamite,_ the insidious voice said. Laurel realized that it sounded like her mother- a fervent White Triangle supporter, who had been disgusted to find out that her son didn't think like she did.

Somehow, it didn't seem so- _right_, after that.

_And why am I listening to Kivun Roxxas? _Laurel asked herself. _It was _his_ father who had Clarence arrested, who had Uncle Roger and Aunt Aurelia killed. They would have killed him for thinking that maybe they were wrong, and he's only ten years old._

Movement on the other side of lab caught her eye.

_Brainiac 5 is that old,_ she realized with a start. _And Shrinking Violet. Invisible Kid isn't that much older. Element Lad _looks _that old, even though I know he's older. And he has Clary's heart; and Brainiac 5 has his determination- he never backed down all those times Mom screamed at him, and Brainiac never stopped working at the anti-lead serum once we got back to Legion Headquarters- and he's _still_ improving it, I've _seen_ him-_

_Stop it!_ her mother screamed at her.

_No, _you_ stop it!_ Laurel yelled right back, and squeezed her eyes shut.

She opened them again a few moments later and looked over at her teammate.

_I don't think being a good person and being a good Daxamite are the same thing._

* * *

><p><em>:Brainy?:<em>

_That is _not _my name!_ Querl told her irritably. _There is nothing on the security feeds that you need to be concerned with-_

_:Will you send Shrinking Violet back down? We're understaffed without her.:_

He scowled. Salu noticed and looked at him questioningly.

_I will _not _send her back down,_ he told Saturn Girl. _If she returns the conference, there is a definite chance that those junior officers would just start harassing her again, and I do not believe that she would be able to keep her temper._

_:You don't think that _Shrinking Violet_ can keep her temper?:_ she asked doubtfully.

"You're talking to Saturn Girl, aren't you?" Salu asked suspiciously.

"Yes, I'm talking to Saturn Girl," he said. _No, I don't believe she can. She was close to losing it before I called her-_

"What does she want?"

"I can't talk to both of you at once!" Brainy told her.

_:_Yes _you-:_

_I am not sending her back down! _he told the other Legionnaire. _And that is _final!

He shoved her out of his mind.

"She wanted me to send you back to the conference room. I refused."

"_But-_" she began indignantly.

"What I said before still stands. I will _not_ have you lose your temper in that room."

"I will _not-_"

Both of them became so engrossed in the argument that neither of them noticed Andromeda leave.

* * *

><p>Laurel strode into the conference room and ignored the few alarmed looks she was getting from the other Legionnaires.<p>

_:Andromeda! What-: _

She pushed Saturn Girl's words aside and headed straight for the Braalian junior officers.

They didn't see her coming.

Laurel reached them and clamped a hand on both of their shoulders.

"I was monitoring the security feeds earlier before Brainiac 5 recalled Shrinking Violet to help him out," she said, speaking a little louder than she usually did; and gave the two of them a cold smile. "And I heard you wondering why the Legion was here."

She noticed the little tell-tale signs on the junior officer's faces- eyes slightly wider than normal, nostrils flared, jaw tensed- that showed apprehension.

She tightened her grip on their shoulders a little more, just enough for them to realize that she was operating at enhanced strength- and that they weren't going to be able to pull away.

"We were told that there might be people who wouldn't be happy about Imskians and Braalians in the same room together. In fact, they were likely to be very unhappy. We didn't want things to get nasty- the Legion really, really doesn't like prejudice- so here we are."

Xamuel Ivar called for all the delegates to take their seats and begin the conference.

Laurel raised an eyebrow at them.

"_That _answer your question?"

One of the junior officers swallowed, and then nodded.

"Good," she told them, and gave their shoulders one squeeze before letting go. She turned away and took up Shrinking Violet's security position.

"That didn't _really_ just happen, did it?" she heard Lighting Lad whisper incredulously-

-and smiled.


	7. To My Readers

_This work has been discontinued. The author extends apologies to all those who have followed and have been patiently, anxiously awaiting an update. Thank you for sticking with it for as long as it lasted. In the event of the sudden resurrection of the author's Legion of Superheroes muse, this work will be properly finished. _


End file.
